


We are Not Ourselves

by Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Divergent, Destiel - Freeform, Family, M/M, Post-Apocalypse, Time Travel, Winchester Family Drama (Supernatural)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2021-02-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:27:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 25,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27721394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola/pseuds/Gimme_a_Hand_Scaevola
Summary: Dean Winchester retired from hunting for six quiet years. He built as quiet a life as he knew how while Cas remained absent, abandoning him for heaven. But now, six years later, Cas is asking to stay. Hesitantly, Dean accepts. His life may have drastically changed since Cas left, but he has missed the angel. But Cas arrives with bitter news, more unrest in heaven, unrest that threatens to destroy not only the short patch of domesticity Dean had managed to forge, but everything.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Eileen Leahy/Sam Winchester
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

Dean hummed along to the Led Zeppelin on the radio while he flipped the burgers that sizzled in front of him. 

“Dinner!” He shouted over his shoulder, loud enough to be heard up the hall of the bunker. 

He scooped up the burgers one at a time with the spatula and dropped them onto buns, carrying the plates over to the table. 

“Hey! I said DINNER!” 

He nodded in satisfaction when the little feet pitter-pattered down the hallway. Bobby careened into the kitchen and half-fell half-leapt into her chair, grinning. A hole stuck out in her smile where she’d lost a tooth. 

“Good girl, eat up,” he said, cracking open a beer while she drank her milk. They were quiet for the first few minutes of the meal while they both wolfed down their burgers with matching gusto. 

“A friend of mine is gonna be staying here for a little while,” he said, “You’ll like him.” 

“What friend?” she asked, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. 

Dean made a face at her and handed her a napkin, “His name’s Cas, we -uh, we go way back.” 

“When’s he gonna get here?”

“He said soon, maybe tonight, maybe later, finish your milk.” 

She did as she was told, pushing her empty plate away from her. “Does he have a cooler car than us?” 

Dean laughed and scooped her out of her chair, swinging her in the air and catching her properly, “What? Course not. Nobody’s got a cooler car than us.” 

She whooped and giggled before snuggling happily into her father’s arms, “Why’s he staying here?” 

Dean carried her to the library and sat down, cradling her in his lap while he decided how he wanted to answer that, “He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” 

“Why not?” 

“His family’s a piece of shit.” 

She pouted for her father’s friend and said, “That’s a good reason.” 

“Yeah, haven’t seen him in a long time.” 

“Why?” 

“We had a big fight I guess- I dunno, we don’t really fight. Said some things, he took off.” 

“Is he gonna stay long?” 

Dean wished he hadn’t left his beer in the kitchen but didn’t want to disturb the kid to go get it, “Hope so.” 

“Is he a hunter?” she leapt up and jumped to the other end of the couch, rolling off of it and bouncing around the library swinging an imaginary knife. 

He smiled, “I guess… something like that. Whatcha fighting?” 

“A rugaru!” She announced, punching at nothing.

“You gonna punch a rugaru?” He asked, smiling at her dodging her pretend quarry.

“Yeah!”

“Gonna get yourself killed. Gotta get it with fire.” 

“Can I have your lighter, daddy?” 

He laughed, “Absolutely not, but show me what you’d do with it.” 

“That’s ok, I got a flamethrower!” She shouted and made her best flamethrower sound effects while burning the imaginary rugaru. She looked up, “Dad did you see - dad?” she asked, looking at the spot on the couch he’d been a moment before. 

Her shoulders drooped and she looked around for him, “Dad?” 

He roared from behind her and swept her off her feet, swinging her upside down, while she screamed in surprise and delight, “Forgot to watch your back!” he crowed and tossed her high into the air to bounce on the sofa. 

His phone buzzed on the table and he glanced at it while she was picking herself up, “Hey, my friend’s here. Come on, let’s go let him in.” 

She leapt back up and tagged along after him up the long hallway to the door that opened to the outside. 

He peered through the circular window set in the door to the Bunker and grinned, swinging it wide, “Hey, Cas.” 

Castiel stood, frowning slightly in his dirty trenchcoat, “Hello, Dean.” 

“Get your feathery ass in here,” he said, ignoring the awkwardness that threatened to seep in.

Cas came in, looking at the child while Dean shut and resealed the door. 

“Oh - yeah,” Dean said, a little uncomfortably, “This is Bobby, Bobby, this is my friend Cas.” 

Cas glanced up at him then back at Bobby, “Hello.” 

“Hi,” she said, scooting behind her father’s legs. 

“I-” Cas fumbled for his words, “I recall that you had a child.” 

“Yeah? Who told you that?” Dean asked, a little bitterness creeping into his voice. 

“I have not- I have not been entirely ignorant of the news of your life.” 

“That so?” He asked, not meaning for it to be as harsh as it sounded. 

Cas fidgeted, “Ah well I- I assume you will not stay here long.” 

“Where do you think we’re going?” 

“... to your… home. I thought you were living in a townhouse in Salem, Oregon,” Cas said, frowning and tilting his head. 

“Bobby and I live here, Cas,” Dean said, not giving him any details beyond that. 

“Perhaps I should stay somewhere else,” Cas said in a low voice. 

“I said you could stay, just shut up.” Dean picked up Bobby who had gone quiet, “Your old room’s all made up. Washed the sheets.” 

“.....Thank you, Dean,” he said gruffly, not reminding him that he did not sleep. 

Dean hadn’t wanted it to go like that, he’d missed the stupid angel. He wanted him to like Bobby and like staying here, but as soon as he was in front of him he just felt bitter he’d been away so long. He was quiet carrying Bobby to her room for bed, ignoring the friend he had been so excited to see only moments before. 

“Are you mad?” Bobby asked in a tiny voice when they were at her bedroom door. 

“Huh? No, I’m not mad, definitely not mad at you,” he said soothingly, “But it’s bedtime.” 

“Ok,” she said, not fighting him. She changed into her pajamas and brushed her teeth just like she was supposed to, Dean waiting for her to finish so he could tuck her in and kiss her forehead. 

“Did you check them?” She asked sleepily. 

Dean glanced at the glittery pink sigils that were painted all across her walls, “Every night, kiddo.” 

“No monsters?” 

“No monsters, nothing can get in if somebody don’t let it in” he confirmed, “Got the walkie if you need me?” 

She nodded and pointed at her walkie talkie on her nightstand that connected to the one he had on his own nightstand. 

He kissed her head again, “Alright, sleep tight, Bobby.” 

“Wait, tell me a story.” 

He could never resist, “What story you wanna hear?” 

“Bout you and Uncle Sam and monsters,” she said, “A fun one.” 

“How about the clown one?”

She nodded.

“Alright, you remember what it was called?” 

She nodded, “Rakshasa,” she mumbled sleepily. 

“Yeah, good memory,” he said and sat on the edge of her bed to tell her about him and Sam killing the Rakshasa that was holed up at the circus, with a little bit of the worst gore edited out. 

She made it about a quarter of the way through before she was asleep. 

He turned on her nightlight and left her door an inch open the way she liked. He lingered awhile, half to watch her sleep and half because he didn’t want to face Cas just yet. Finally he headed out, going to the kitchen instead of the library to wash up from supper, hoping he could have a few minutes to himself to think. Cas, however, was waiting for him there, sitting as still as a gargoyle. 

He didn’t say anything, just picked up the plates on the table from dinner and ran a sink of water to clean up.

“She looks very much like you…” Cas said after a long period where the only sound was Dean washing dishes. 

“Yeah?” he softened, “You think? You’ll like her.” 

Cas did not answer but watched him finish washing the dishes and begin to put them away. 

“I did not intend to be away so long… you know time moves differently in heaven.” 

“Whatever, Cas. If you needed to bail for six years, you needed to.” 

Cas looked unsure about how to respond and settled for saying nothing, “Things are not going well in heaven.” 

Dean turned to give him his full attention, “...what kind of not well?” 

“Not like before,” Cas said hurriedly. 

“You sure?” 

“At least, not yet… Do you have the bunker warded against angels?” 

“As well as I could.” 

“I will add my own sigils.” 

“Heaven’s not gonna come crashing in here are they?” He asked, tone full of warning. 

“No. It is contained.” 

“For now,” Dean muttered. 

“For now,” Cas conceded, “Dean… I will do whatever I can to keep this from becoming your problem.” 

Dean stared him down, wanting to be angry, but his anger died looking at Cas’ contrite, sorrowful expression. He sighed, “Are we good?”

“Yes, Dean, We are… good.”

Dean ran a hand down his face, “I’m going to bed.” 

“It is much earlier than you were accustomed to sleeping.” 

“Yeah well… the kid gets up early.” 

“I see. Goodnight, Dean.” 

Dean crossed Cas’ path on his way out of the kitchen. Cas reached out his hand and caught Dean’s wrist. Lighting bristled up Dean’s arm. 

“Y-yeah?” he asked, turning back, finding himself, like the old days, too close to Cas’ face. 

“Dean, I meant what I said. All will be well. After a bit of rest I will ease the tension in Heaven. Your daughter, Bobby, will not come to harm. I give you my word.”

### 2043 A.D. - Chicago, Earth

Bobby wove the Indian Scout motorcycle carefully through the stalled cars that littered the broken highway. It was getting worse close to Chicago, the roads were crowded and hard to maneuver through, the slow buzz of her motorcycle the only sound she could hear. 

The buildings shot shabbily up into the sky, she wasn’t close enough to see much more than skyline now, still being in the suburbs. She knew, however, when she got up close they’d look broken and bedraggled with no one to look after them. 

Her stomach growled and she pulled off the highway slowly, easing down into the residential maze of what looked like a middle class neighborhood. She parked her bike in a driveway off a cul de sac and dismounted, taking off her helmet and leaving it on the seat. She drew her knife out of the side bag and put it on her hip, the Colt was already in one holster, a regular handgun in the other. Just in case, she slung the sawed off across her back and carried a fireax in her hand. 

She started with the house she was in front of, testing the bolt then using the ax to chop it open when she found it locked. No use risking a turned ankle or hurt shoulder ramming against it. She reached through the hole she’d chopped in the door and unlocked it, then swung it open. 

The house was musty with disuse as she was accustomed to. She glanced into the living room and found them, their throats torn out and so more than lifeless that it still made her shudder. Three of them. Nothing touched them, no animals or nothing, so they didn’t rot. These ones had been wearing synthetic fabrics so they looked much like they must have when they died, just dustier and dried up. 

She looked away and continued to the kitchen. She knocked the old bread and cereal aside, going for the cans instead. She found a can opener in a drawer and opened them, sniffing the contents: beans, peaches that were close to turning foul, Hormell tamales; before she ate them cold, looking curiously around the kitchen. 

The kitchens she looted were usually almost like the Bunker kitchen, but smaller generally, and full of windows. She found a tin of coffee and put it in her pack, looking for the inevitable junk drawer where she could find batteries. 

A little growl snarled up from behind her and she turned without fear, it wasn’t the sort of growl she feared. A coyote snarled at her and she snarled back, lifting her arms and lunging. It scampered and she returned to what she was doing without any further care. 

She didn’t go upstairs, she didn’t need new clothes at the moment and the second floors were starting to be unstable in places, no need to risk it now. 

She spent an hour looting the other houses in the cul de sac, then siphoned some gas for her bike before heading back out. 

There was no reason for her to be in Chicago, but then there was no reason not to be in Chicago either. Maybe the Field Museum was still up. Uncle Sammy said it was unmissable.

The city streets were grim, since people had been outside when they came. The bodies were everywhere, dry and abandoned. It put sick in Bobby’s stomach and before she’d even gotten to see anything, she wished she hadn’t come. They were the wrong kind of dead. 

But she had come, and she wouldn’t waste it. She wound her way through the city, wishing she’d seen it when it was alive so she could have some point of comparison. She saw a sign for the Field and turned that way. 

Before she’d gone a block, a shadow crossed overhead and she cut her engine right where she was, taking the time to drop the kickstand only so it wouldn’t clatter. She seized the side bag off the bike and pelted into the nearest building, not bothering her usual sweep for animals. She raced to a back room she could barely see with the light coming through the broken window and closed the door, slamming the lock home. She scrambled for her weapons, holding her sawed off in her hands so tight her knuckles must have been white, listening. 

She couldn’t hear anything but the blood rampaging in her ears. It had been a long time since she’d seen one. If it had seen her, she was dead. Shotgun or no, there was nothing she could do. This would fend off a bear or a feral dog, but it wouldn’t do shit against them. 

She squeezed her eyes shut and listened for the beating of wings and howling snarls. Nothing came. 

Still she waited, she waited for many long minutes to pass before finally sneaking back out the door and toward the bike outside. She lay flat on the floor by the window and pressed against the wall, looking up to see as much of the sky as she could. She saw nothing, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t there. The buildings all around her now looked ominous, so many broken windows to hide in, walls to swoop from behind. What had she been thinking, coming here? 

“Alright, Bobby Winchester,” she muttered to herself, “Get up and go to your bike. Come on, don’t be such a baby. Worst case, you die, no biggie.” 

She finally got up and edged out of the store, eyes on the sky, scooting foot-by-foot to the bike. Halfway there she broke into a run and swung herself onto the motorcycle, kicking it to life and turning in a fast circle to race at top speed out of the city. Normally she didn’t like to accelerate this fast, waste of gas, but now she gave it everything the bike had. 

Nothing followed her.

She made it all the way to the little towns outside the city before nightfall, glad for the open skies and beginnings of emptiness, even if she hadn’t gotten to see what she’d come for. She pulled down a long driveway to an acreage and stopped by an outbuilding. She didn’t have time to clear the whole house before sleep, but she did at least take her time sweeping the outbuilding itself, finding nothing more than a family of possums behind a riding mower. It was still warm this time of year up here, she’d be fine. She unclipped her bedroll from the other side of the bike and laid it out on the dusty floor, laying down to rest, fully armed and dressed.

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

Dean groaned when he woke, sitting up and cracking his back, wincing at the pain that made him feel like an old man. He stood and pulled on a t-shirt, sliding his feet into his slippers and pulling on a robe since, try as he might for Bobby’s sake, the Bunker was never exactly warm. 

He went down to the kitchen for some coffee, finding Bobby already awake, sitting next to Castiel. The coffee pot was full, Cas with his own cup, both of them were coloring in one of her coloring books. 

“Morning, working hard I see,” he said, pouring himself a cup and watching them. 

“It is of utmost importance that I remain in the lines, I am told,” Cas said, looking up at Dean. 

“I thought kids might freak you out.” 

“Hardly, there are fledgling angels, I was fond of them,” Cas said. 

“You’re kidding me, there’s angel kids?” 

“Of course, where did you think angels came from?” 

Dean shrugs, “Guess I never thought about it. You were a kid angel once then? You have a tiny little trenchcoat?” 

Cas looked ruffled, “Of course not, Dean, this is Jimmy Novak’s coat, you should know that.” 

Dean laughed, relieved they weren’t sniping at each other, “Bet you were a cute fledgeling.” 

A blush rose on Cas’ cheeks and he protested, “I have told you many times that my true form is-”

“Yeah yeah yeah big and lots of wings I got it. Cutest thirty-eyed monstrosity in the garrison, I bet.”

“Dean, why would a fledgeling be in a garrison?” 

Dean threw his head back and laughed, Cas smiling unsurely at him, “Damn, I missed you, Cas.” 

“Yes I- I missed you as well, Dean. Very much,” he added, tone dropping low. Their eyes met over the kitchen table.

Bobby broke the moment, looking up at Cas, “You’re an angel?”

“Yes,” Cas answered bluntly. 

She looked from Cas to her father and worried her lip, “Are angels like monsters?” 

“Hell yeah they are,” Dean said, “But not Cas. Like I said, he’s an old friend.” 

“Ok,” she said and went back to coloring. 

“Hey, kid, go get ready for the day. Get out of those PJs and I’ll make breakfast.” 

She nodded and scooted down from her chair and off to her room. 

“Thanks for looking after her this morning,” Dean said after a moment of silence. 

“Of course,” Cas said in his usual little rumble. 

“You like her?” 

“She’s your daughter.” 

“Is that a yes?” 

Cas looked at Dean for a long moment, “That’s a yes.” 

“I’m glad you’re here,” Dean said, “Glad you came I mean.” 

Cas nodded a little and looked at him, “Where is her mother?” 

Dean made a disgruntled noise and turned away to search for pancake mix in the cupboards. 

“I am surprised you chose the Bunker. I was under the impression you wanted a ‘normal life’ free of… ‘heaven bullshit’.” 

Dean felt the quotes around the words he’d used six years ago. Guilt and bitterness rose in equal parts in his gut. He continued to not say anything, but he was making pancakes with an odd intensity. 

Cas kept watching him, not saying anything more. 

They both listened to the whisk scrape the bowl for a long moment. 

“You done?” Dean growled. 

“You have not answered my questions.” 

“Yeah, well you fucked off for six friggen years,” Dean snapped. 

“You made it clear you did not care for my company.” 

“Then why are you here now?” 

“As I said… there is unrest in heaven. I had nowhere else to go. As you know, the Bunker provides some respite.” 

Dean leaned against the refrigerator and sighed, then grabbed a bag of chocolate chips to add to the mix, “Unrest in heaven… I know what you said last night but, you bringing me back into this shit?” 

“Dean… if heavenly unrest spills onto Earth there will be no way to stay out of it… whether I were here or not. I did not come for nothing. I would have been content to be in the Bunker alone. As I said… I did not expect you to have inhabited it.” 

“Well lucky you then, you got housemates. This would be a shitty place to stay in alone.” 

“Yes, very lucky,” Cas grimaced, “I get to stay here with…” he looked at Dean for a very long time, “You three.” 

“Two,” Dean grunted. 

“Her mother-”

“Two,” he said again, half snarl in his voice. 

“Ah- I see…” he looked away then glanced back at Dean. 

Castiel continued to watch him get out the griddle and cook the pancakes.

“I - hm- I am surprised you told your child about monsters, I assumed you would want to shield her from that.” 

“Tried that with Sam, tried it with Ben, just gets ‘em hurt. That stuff’s out there. I don’t want her to spend her life chasing it down, but she doesn’t have to be a sitting duck either.” 

“She may want to hunt.” 

“She’s four.” 

“I meant when she was older.” 

Dean didn’t want to address this question, he flipped the pancakes onto three plates.

“I don’t eat, Dean.” 

“You’ll eat my damn pancakes and you’ll like them.” 

“...alright, Dean.” 

Dean held out the plate and Cas took it, their fingers brushed together and Cas inhaled sharply. Dean looked up. They held each other’s gazes for a long moment, before Cas took his plate and sat at the table. 

Dean watched him, belatedly calling out for Bobby, “Breakfast!” 

She broke whatever feeling had been brewing, pelting into the room, leaping onto the chair next to Cas, “Hi, Cas! Can I sit by you?” 

He smiled at her, “Of course, your father made pancakes.” 

“They’re my favorite, what’s your favorite?” 

“Burgers,” he answered, glancing at Dean.

“Daddy’s too!” she giggled, “Is that why you’re friends?” 

“No, we are friends because when he was being tortured in Hell I besieged the gates and when I found him, I gripped him tight and raised him from perdition.” 

“ _Cas_ ,” Dean hissed. 

Bobby had gone quiet and blinked at him, “...huh?” 

“He saved my bacon,” Dean explained, “More than once actually.” 

“I believe there was mutual, erm, bacon saving,” Cas said. 

Dean sat across from them with his own pancakes, “What you wanna get up to today, kid? You wanna help me clean the car?” 

She nodded, “Cas, you wanna help?” 

Dean nudged him under the table, smiling, “You wanna help us wash the car?” 

Cas smiled at him, a small and tender smile, “Of course, Dean.” He let his knee continue to rest against Dean’s. Dean looked away, but didn’t move his knee.

### 2045 A.D. - Somewhere in Oklahoma, Earth

Bobby didn't remember what state she was in, but it was a warm one. She needed gas and food. 

Sick of old cans of cold vegetables, it was time to hunt something. She found a squat house near the edge of town and looked up the wall, trying and failing to get a grip on the faded plastic siding. She growled in annoyance and tried scaling the gutter, yelping when it tore from the wall and she fell to the ground beneath her, nothing hurt but her pride. She pouted and swore then spent a few minutes scrounging around the shed in the back and hauling a ladder out, leaning it against the house. She scurried up it and pulled herself awkwardly onto the roof, getting to her feet and walking to the back. She lay on her belly, facing what was a vegetable garden once, now overgrown, and took a few minutes to settle in with her rifle. She didn’t get to use the rifle much, just for this really, she’d have to start looting more ammo for it, she would only need it more. 

She lay there for hours in the pre-dawn mist, the cool, damp air surrounding her. She was patient; after all, she had nothing but time. The sound was always a risk, but it was a risk she’d have to take. And anyway, maybe it would finally bring them to her and she would be done. 

A deer slowly ambled into the yard to nibble on the grass and she grinned, looking down the sight of her rifle and waiting for her shot. She might not have had much of a chance to practice shooting in the middle of a real hunt, but years in a Bunker with a shooting range made her good if she had a steady shot.

As she knew it would, the sound of the gunshot split the quiet air. Red burst from where the deer had been hit but she’d hit its belly, not its heart. The deer bolted, blood splattering the grass where it ran. 

“Fuck,” she grumbled and rose, slinging her rifle strap over her shoulder and going back to the ladder to shimmy back down to the ground. She circled the house and sighed heavily at the trail of blood disappearing into a copse of trees. She started walking after it, annoyed at her less than perfect shot. 

The ground was wet and cold in the trees and it was hard to follow the blood. She got lost twice, having to go all the way back to the house and start again, before she found the deer collapsed and dying. She drew her knife and ended its suffering. She was lucky it was just a small doe, if it had been a buck she’d have had to clean it here. As it was, she could crouch and get its hundred pound body over her shoulders to haul it back to the house. 

By the time she got back to the yard she was covered in blood and breathing hard. She dropped it with a dead thump and sat in the grass next to it, putting down her rifle too, catching her breath. If she hadn’t been hungry before, she sure as shit was now. 

When her breath was back to normal she pushed herself to her feet and went back to the shed where she’d found the ladder to hunt down a length of rope. She wasn’t disappointed, she’d have to keep this, it was good rope. She returned to her kill and trussed it up by the back legs, tossing the rope over a sturdy branch to pull the doe into the air. 

Bleeding and butchering the deer took a long time, even if her butchering wasn’t much more than slicing whatever meat she could off of it. But it was well worth it when she had a fire crackling and venison smelling like heaven itself over it. 

She smiled when she had her cooked meat in hand, juice running down her chin as she shoved meat into her hungry mouth. Not one of her dad’s burgers, but good. 

A twig snapped and she leapt to her feet, sawed-off in her hands, pointing at the noise. 

She made a loud noise to scare off whatever animal it was. When she heard nothing more, no scampering of paws, she paused, failing to tamp down the bubbling hope in her gut. 

“Hey!” She called out, “Somebody there?” 

She stalked toward the little copse of trees the noise had come out of. “Anybody?” 

She pushed aside the branches, heart hammering in her chest. “I won’t hurt you, are you there?”

Something rustled behind her and she turned in time to see a coyote snatch the meat from her spit near the fire and dart off into the dark. 

“Damnit!” She snarled, and stomped back to her fire, glaring into the flames. It had only been a coyote.

She sliced off more meat and shoved it into the spit to begin cooking again. 

She glanced up at the deadly skies devoid of dark, feathered wings; at least for now. As far as she’d seen, it was just her and them now. As easy as it would be to stop the constant scrabble for food and shelter and be done with it, old Winchester stubbornness dictated that if there were monsters to hunt, she’d hunt them. “Just come and get me, shitstains.” 

But they did not come, nothing came. 

She filled her belly with meat and extinguished the fire, spitting in it and going inside to set up her camp for the night. At least if she could get a sidecar or something maybe she could adopt one of the feral dogs that ran around cities. That would be nice, a little companionship. 

She drifted off, hand on her sawed-off. 

She got right to work when she woke, preparing to leave. She could have stayed at that house and hunted more deer, but she couldn’t ever stand to stay anywhere too long, the feel of the too dead bodies got to her without fail and she would move along. 

She felt she would always be moving along. She needed a new heading, something to aim for even if it was frivolous. 

She searched her mind for something worth seeing, preferably something not in a major city. Her eyes lit up when she thought of it., _Tthat_ would be worth seeing.

A few days later, the motorcycle rumbled under Bobby while she barreled down a mercifully empty highway. The cars had been going fast when they’d come so they were crashed in ditches, roofs torn off of most of them. It left the highway clear for her to cruise down, stopping only when the asphalt was broken and needed to be carefully maneuvered over. She’d just looted new tires, she didn’t want to damage them. 

She pulled off when she saw a broken metal post sticking up and dismounted, descending into the ditch and moving slowly over the long grass. It was big and didn’t take long to find, the huge metal sign, flipped upside down, metal rent from the talons of the beast that had ripped it down. She paused to put on heavy leather gloves then hefted it up, unwilling to cut herself on dirty metal and risk infection. 

The sign was huge and she had to stand on her tiptoes, hands all the way over her head before she could get the sign up far enough to flip it over. 

_  
Beresford, SD 90  
Sioux Falls, SD 126  
_

Good. She was close, she’d be there in a few hours. She wanted to see Singer’s Garage, the old house. Her dad had said it used to be like home. She knew Bobby Singer had died long before she was born and the garage might not even be there, but she had nothing but time. 

She got back on her bike and kept going, through the one time sleepy Beresford and into the biggest city South Dakota once had to its name. She knew the address, it had been written in a journal her dad had had in his room and she now had in her backpack. She’d just have to pull into a gas station near the outskirts and get a Sioux Falls map. 

She stopped as soon as she saw a little gas station. She found a hand pump in the back of the garage and refilled her gas tank, stopping to open a can of chili from the storefront and eat it cold then grabbing herself a map. 

She sat outside in the sun with a pen, sketching her route and enjoying the warmth. It would be a nice drive, she didn’t have to go through the city proper, it was a ways out of town where it still felt really rural, she liked that much better than entering even a city of Sioux Falls’ meager size.

She took a moment to lay back on the hot concrete and close her eyes, liking the yellow sunshine through her eyelids. It reminded her of summer days with her father. He would practice shooting outside and she would lay across the warm trunk of the Impala and sleep. 

She shoved the map into her pocket and drove on, wending her way through the streets to find Singer’s Garage. Maybe the house would still be there, she could find photos of her family. She’d only ever seen one of Bobby Singer. 

Her heart clenched when she let herself think of her dad. She missed him so bad it made her bones hurt. They still wouldn’t have been able to maneuver the Impala but they could have both had bikes. She had to pull over to get herself together. She wanted to hit something it hurt so bad.

“Stop being a baby,” she chided herself and kicked her motorcycle back to life, setting her sights on the garage. 

She saw the sign first, and beamed: _Singer Garage_. It was still there! She cruised toward the gate, already looking forward to what she’d find. She rode right up to the gate to look at the padlock, sure she could break it if she had the time. 

A shadow passed overhead. 

She looked up and her blood ran like ice.

Circling the garage was one of them. Its frame suspended in the air on two massive wings, feathers red and black, mouth distended to hold enormous teeth, hands with claws like knives. 

It turned in the air and looked down at the motorcycle rumbling beneath. 

It shrieked, the sound so high and loud it rang in Bobby’s ears. She screamed.

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

“What are you doing, Dean?” Castiel asked, watching him haul in a military duffel bag and wooden crate from the garage, dropping them on the big table in the war room of the bunker. 

“Going through inventory, thought I’d better make sure we got everything we need.” 

“You still have your hunter’s gear?” He asked, watching Dean start sorting out spell supplies and ammunition and an assortment of artifacts he’d gotten over the years.

“What? Course I do. I didn’t retire or anything.” 

“When was your last hunt?” 

He grunted, “A while ago, I guess, a couple years.” 

“What did you hunt?” 

“Vamps, couple of ‘em holed up in Lebanon.” 

Cas took a seat beside him, taking the spell ingredients and sorting them efficiently, “That sounds very territorial of you.” 

That made Dean grin, “Can’t have ‘em near my house.” 

“Or near Bobby.” 

“Yeah, that too, she was just a baby back then. She napped through the whole thing, I made Sammy come watch her.” 

“How is Sam?”

“He’s real good, married to that lady Eileen, couple of kids of his own. Out of the life- you know mostly..” 

“Is he?”

He laughs, “As much as he’ll ever be. He takes FBI calls and does research. But like I said, he’s got a coupla kids now. Hard to hunt with kids.”

“I am sure you have found that yourself,” Cas said, sniffing an old jar and wrinkling his nose, “You need new rosemary.” 

“Put it on the list,” Dean shoved his list over to Cas, who diligently wrote down his ingredient. 

“If you are not hunting, then why inventory so diligently?” 

Dean fiddled with the knife he’d just pulled out of the duffle bag, “Unrest in heaven ain’t ever good, Cas.” 

He shifted in discomfort, “It has been… difficult to keep the peace. They want a real leader, an archangel.” 

“The archangels are dead,” Dean said, sharpening his knife now, honing its edge with practiced motions. 

“Yes, all four of them, there is… only unrest for now. I am not sure the cause. But I will put a stop to it by whatever means necessary.” 

“You aren’t enough of a leader for ‘em huh?” 

“I am a soldier, nothing more.” 

Dean smirked at him, “Castiel, angel of the Lord, funniest angel in the garrison, all that?” 

Cas smirked back, “I am not in the garrison now, Dean.” 

“They kicked you out?” 

“Yes.” 

“Why? You have another stupid save-heaven-grand-plan? Because I gotta tell you, Cas, those never work out well.” 

He frowned, “Well I will need some sort of ‘save-heaven-grand-plan,’” he said, making air quotes, “Or Earth will need saving too, if history tells us anything.” 

“We’ll work that out, for now I’m, uh, I’m glad you’re here.” 

“Are you?” Castiel asked, tilting his head, “You have not seemed glad.” 

“Can you blame me for being worried? You didn’t come with great news. It’s not like you came down asking to stay because you missed me.” 

“I did miss you, Dean.” 

Dean’s hands flinched in their work, “You were gone a long time. You could have come back whenever you wanted.” 

“You instructed me not to.” 

“I’m sorry about that, Cas, I was angry, I shouldn’t have said that stuff to you. It was a long time ago… I missed you too.” 

Cas and Dean continued to sort and clean the contents of the bag, neither of them talking.

They didn’t talk until the door opened and Bobby came in, drowning in one of her Dean’s flannel shirts over her tiny pink t-shirt. 

She nudged her father’s shoulder and he scooted his chair back, picking her up into his lap, “You wanna help, kiddo?” 

“Yeah, what are you doing?” she asked, hair a wild mess from her nap. 

“Well we gotta keep our stuff in nice condition, right, sharpen all the knives, clean the guns, see what spell shit we’ve got.” 

“Can I clean a gun?”

“When you start shaving your armpits you can,” he grumbled, “Why don’t you watch Cas, he’s doing the spell stuff.” 

She did as she was told and watched Cas count out small tins of dirt. 

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Grave dirt,” he replied. 

“What’s that?” she asked again when he moved on. 

“An angel feather,” he said, “From an angel your father killed on a playground.” 

“Dad killed an angel on a playground?”

“Yes.” 

“Why’d he take their feather?” 

“Angel feathers are useful in spell work and rituals, it would have been a wasted opportunity to leave it.” 

“Dad, I’m bored, can I go play?” she asked. 

“Yeah, get out of here.” She slid off his lap and let him kiss the top of her head then she raced off. 

Cas watched her leave uncomfortably, “Dean…” 

“What?” he said, snapping open a gun to clean it. 

“I recognize what you said when I arrived but truly, I did not know your family would be here. I don’t want to be a burden. I can go. I have made my way on Earth before.” 

“Cas,” Dean said, looking resolutely at his gun and not at the angel, “Don’t go.”

Cas hesitated and then reached up, laying his hand on Dean’s shoulder where his handprint still lay, emblazoned on Dean’s flesh and soul forever. 

“Cas,” he said, softer, looking up. 

“Yes, Dean?” Cas asked, scooting closer to him. 

“I’m glad you’re here,” he said, voice low and rough. 

“I am-” Cas licked his lips, “I am glad to be with - to be here.” 

They stayed there, looking at each other, faces inches apart. Dean’s eyes flickered down to Cas’ lips. 

“Dean I- I have a question I find I would like to ask you.” 

“Yeah, Cas?” 

He stumbled over his words, “Dean- I-” his nerve failed him, “Why did your relationship with Bobby’s mother fail?” 

Dean recoiled, scowling at him, “Why’s that matter to you?” 

“I don’t even know her name.” 

“You would if you hadn’t been hiding out in heaven.” 

“I was needed in heaven.” 

“...Amber, her name was Amber alright?” 

“Did you love her?” 

“Jesus, Cas, can you drop it?” 

“I would like to understand why it did not… work out.” 

“Sometimes shit happens, it doesn’t work out. Especially with a guy like me.” 

“Yes, I can see that.” 

“Gee, thanks, Cas,” He said, getting up and snapping the gun barrel back up, “Glad you two are on the same page.” 

“I- Dean, I do not believe I was clear.” 

“You were plenty clear, Cas, it’s hard to be with somebody like me. Crystal fucking clear on that.” 

“I meant that I can see why it would be intimidating being romantically entangled with you.” 

Dean glared down at him, gun still in his hand, which might have actually _been_ intimidating if he’d been looking down on anybody but an Angel of the Lord. “You telling me you think I scare the girls I’m with?” 

Cas drew back, fearing he had grossly misstepped, “Dean, I - I did not mean to imply you were… violent with your partners.” 

“The fuck did you mean by intimidating then?” he growled. 

“You were called The Righteous Man for a reason, Dean,” Cas said, “Your soul burns with a just cause, it enraptured me from the first moment I laid eyes on it in Hell. I only meant that may be... difficult for a partner to live up to.” 

Dean was entirely disarmed, “Oh - Cas -” he laughed nervously, “Enraptured? You've been watching too many Hallmark movies.” 

“I don’t know what that means, Dean.” 

“It doesn’t mean a damn thing. I’m gonna make lunch, you still like peanut butter and jelly?”

“Yes, Dean, I do.”

### 2045 A.D. - Sioux Falls, SD, Earth

Bobby lurched the motorcycle around so fast the rear tire skidded and she almost fell. She wrenched on the accelerator and snapped forward, the monster bearing down. This little bike wasn’t meant to race, it seemed so slow, like she was dragging through mud. It would not be fast enough. 

She heard the shrieking coming closer and glanced over her shoulder to see that it was almost upon her. Its wings outstretched, black feathers dull and crumpled, feet with enormous claws pulled up to snatch her like a horrifying hawk. It shrieked and the talons snapped for her. 

She veered right sharply, the bike careening, toppling over. The fast movement pitched her away, but she did not escape the creature. Rather than catch her squarely, it only caught one of her shoulders in one of its claws so she hung at an odd angle, dragging it down with her. They hit the ditch and rolled. Pain splintered out from where its claws dug in, she felt like they cut her down deeper than even bone. Her body shuddered, but she punched forward, hitting its side. She could feel it reel back on the impact. She wrenched her knife from her belt and stabbed so hard at its leg she could feel her knife scrape bone.

It dropped her and they rolled away from each other. She tried to get up, wisps of light and hot blood coming from her wounds. Her knees shook under her with the pain that was arcing through her body. 

The creature snapped at her, its unhealthy wings spreading, unable to support its weight on its wounded leg. You could almost see that it had once looked human, even with its hands ending in six inch, ragged claws and hooked, birdlike feet. These were nothing to the mangled jaw, distorted and wide to fit many rows of broken fangs. 

She stepped back from it, waving her knife in front of it, expecting its wounds to seal closed. She’d seen it before, she knew how ineffectual her weapons were. She’d watched them heal themselves as quickly as they could be hurt.

But its wounded leg didn’t heal and it only snarled at her, not advancing, opening and closing its mouth, many rows of teeth gnashing.

Its ribs were protruding sharply from its abdomen, its belly distended and sick, limbs emaciated and shuddering. 

“Not looking your best,” Bobby mumbled, circling it, lashing out with her knife every time it tried to strike, “What? Can’t clean yourself up? Seen you do it, what’s wrong now?” 

The creature howled and lunged, the heavy claws hanging from its hands slashing at her. She threw up her knife, striking one of its hands, piercing it clean through. 

It wrenched its hand back and screeched, blood flying from the wound when it whipped the knife away. 

“Burn through all that grace of yours?” She taunted, scuttling backwards now that she was unarmed, trying to get to her bike. It leapt at her and she tumbled back down the ditch, scrambling up its embankment ungracefully while the creature pulled its claws from the mud where it had landed. She ducked when its wing tried to catch her, falling to her stomach on the tarmac to avoid it, scraping her knees and palms. 

It dragged itself up and stalked toward her, claws clicking on the road. She reached wildly behind her toward her bike, grasping for her gun’s cold barrel. 

It launched itself at her just as she brought the sawed-off to bear, squeezing the trigger and closing her eyes. 

The gunshot reverberated through the cold air and the monster was knocked back, gasping for air, chest a bloodied mess. 

She squared up, shooting again, aiming at its face. 

The creature fell, face blasted half away, no longer moving beyond twitching on the pavement. 

She sank onto the ground and leaned back against her bike, breathing hard. She looked down at the wounds on her shoulder where the claws had dug in. They were deep and throbbed, and they continued to glow, tendrils of white light like smoke drifting from the punctures. She could feel it leaving her body, and feel cold replacing it. 

Even not moving and bloody on the ground, she could tell it wasn’t dead. It still filled the street with a bone-deep sense of dread, so thick it was like a smell: sickening and unnatural. 

“Gotta get the fuck outta here.” 

She staggered to her feet and turned to her bike then, hesitating, turned back, looking warily at the creature. She drew out her fire ax, the sawed-off awkwardly in one hand. 

She approached it slow and steady, good arm aiming her gun in case she needed to fire it again. If those claws could cut her this deep, maybe leaving them… would be a waste.

She kicked the body softly and it groaned, stirring. 

She leapt back and shot it again in the chest, the recoil from her shotgun hitting her good shoulder hard. She dropped the gun and took up the fireax instead, steadying herself before she went to work getting one of those claws. 

Dripping with black blood, she inspected her gory prize, a black claw the length of her forearm, sharp and glinting in the sun. 

The monster lurched and she struck, slamming its own claw through its chest. It screeched and smokey light flashed in its eyes and out of its mouth as it shook and finally fell to the ground. The dread that had choked like a suffocating cloud had dissipated; the body on the ground now nothing but old meat. 

She looked at it for a moment before turning back. She retreated as quickly as she could to her bike, shoving her things into her bag and kicking the motorcycle into life. It jerked forward and she did her best to control it, even if her wounded shoulder was making her right arm half useless. White light was still coming out of her puncture wounds, not to mention blood, moving her right arm at all was excruciating. 

It took her longer than she wanted to get out of Sioux Falls, unable to get her bike to full speed with how poorly she could control it with one arm. It was still bleeding too, she’d have to stop and patch herself up. Just a little further, if she could get further away she could stop. 

Black spots started shimmering on the edge of her vision.

“Fuck,” she muttered. Sure the punctures had been deep, but she didn’t think she’d lost enough blood to pass out.

She swayed on her bike and almost lost control. She braked before she could do worse damage, making it almost until she was at a stop before she fell, skidding to a stop on the pavement, blackness engulfing her and pain arcing out of her wounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incredible thanks to chemcat92 for her work storyboarding and beta-ing this story. She is an asset and a brilliant editor! 
> 
> We are Not Ourselves is a title borrowed from a book by Matthew Thomas. Not only is it good, but it has the Supernatural quality of being the best when it accidentally stumbles on a theme, and sort of bad when it tries.
> 
> _Rewrite once posted as During the Course of Ruling Hell_
> 
> Let me know what you think!! Comments are always appreciated.


	2. Chapter 2

### 2045 A.D. - Sioux Falls, SD, Earth

Bobby slowly returned to consciousness, body aching, thrums of pain still lancing from her shoulder. Her head pounded angrily. 

She blinked and tried to sit up, not making sense of where she was. She’d been on the side of the road. There was a fire crackling and she smelled cooking. 

“The fuck?” She muttered, sitting up, holding herself up on one hand. She was in a house, the fire was in the fireplace. A blanket was thrown over the inevitable bodies in the kitchen that she could barely see from here. A smallish male figure sat on the sofa, watching her, shadows too deep to let her see his face. 

She tried to scramble up, searching for her knife but not finding it, a yell ripping from her throat. 

“Easy now, kitten, no need for that,” the man’s smooth voice answered, not jumping at her response. 

“The fuck are you?” 

“‘Thank you’ would be nice, as I am the only reason you’re not dead on the side of the road.” 

She growled. 

“Not so chatty, hm? A pity. Sit down.” 

She took a decorative bookend off the shelf behind her, brandishing it. The wound in her shoulder made her right arm basically useless, but her left was fine. 

He stood, coming into the light. He was older, a graying beard on his cheeks. He waved his hand at her with purpose, she glared, but nothing else happened. He frowned and did it again. He scowled deeply and snapped his fingers this time. She blinked and waited. Nothing.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she asked. 

“Put that down,” he snapped, “I saved your life, it isn’t polite to threaten people with bookends.” 

“So?” she said, “Who are you?” 

He smiled a wide lascivious smile and purred, “Crowley, they call me Crowley.” 

She tilted her head, the name familiar, part of stories she’d been told, “Crowley?”

“Yes, pet.” 

She growled in response, but dropped the bookend and slunk across the room without taking her eyes off him. She stopped at the fireplace and sniffed. With quick, sudden movements she snatched a spoon from where he’d left it on the mantle and the handle of the pot on the fire. With her prize, she retreated further away from him, watching him over the pot as she scooped warm beans hungrily into her mouth.

“Hey! Do you have any table manners at all?” he snapped. 

“Why don’t you wave your hand at me again, if you’re so angry,” she dismissed, eating his dinner. 

“I was-”

“I know who you were. I remember,” she said, dropping the pan onto the carpet where it splattered messily and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. 

“You remember? Who the hell are _you_? You’re certainly not a demon. You do realize you would be dead if it weren’t for my generosity. I patched you up. That thing you decided to fight with had your soul split open like a coconut.” 

“Is that what it was?” She asked, looking at her patched shoulder, tiny puffs of white smoke still coming up from the bandages occasionally, “Hurts.” 

“I’ll bet,” he sneered, “Now perhaps before you loot more of my things, you’ll tell me who you are.” 

“Bobby Winchester,” she said, looking for her leather jacket. She saw it over a chair and pulled it on.

“ _Winchester_!? That is my bloody luck, of all the little maggots still left on the Earth it would be a Winchester.” 

She smirked, “My dad told me about you. Demon king or whatever.” 

“Your dad?” he asked, half incredulous, “Which one is your dad? The butch or the giant?” 

She tilted her head at him, and he looked taken aback for a moment before she answered, “Dean Winchester’s my dad.” 

“Was your dad, I think you meant,” he said cruelly. 

Her nose wrinkled in distaste, looking around the squat little house. He was attempting to look dignified, having sat back down. He was half reclined with one leg crossed over the other. The effect was diminished more than a little by the floral couch pattern and the ‘Live Laugh Love’ decal on the wall. She snickered.

“What?” 

“Your mojo out?” she asked. 

“No, as you’ll see if you threaten me with any more bookends.” 

She walked forward and shoved him back against the couch, seizing the knife off his belt roughly as he squabbled with her. She got it half lifted to bear before he got his hand up to her wounded shoulder and dug his fingers into the holes left by the beast. 

She shrieked and fell to her knees as pain overpowered her. She had felt her fair share of physical pain before. This thrummed into her core. The knife clattered to the ground. 

He kicked it aside and let her go. She backed up, out of reach. 

She stumbled to her feet and laughed, even as she fell back, catching herself on the wall, “Yeah, your mojo’s out. Or you’d have flung me into a wall.” 

“That was a dirty trick,” he scowled, “Didn’t daddy teach you any manners?” 

“Not to demons.” 

“Demons, humans, Earth, hell, it’s all the same now, isn’t it?” 

She grunted, not following him. 

“Isn’t it?” he demanded. 

Being stared down for an answer she didn’t have mader her itch. She retreated instead, walking away into the kitchen mid-conversation, rummaging through the cupboards roughly with one arm, her right one tucked tight against her stomach. 

He followed her, making a face, “Excuse me, in case you didn’t notice, I was speaking to you.” 

She glanced at him and nodded, then went back to her rummaging, of course she’d noticed. She found another can of beans and walked back past him, picking up the pot she’d abandoned on the floor. She dug her pocket knife out of her jacket pocket and jimmied the can open, dumping the contents into the pot. She put it back on the fire and squatted to watch it. 

“Do you know how to carry on a conversation?” He asked, still following her, annoyed. 

“Why can’t you-” she mimicked his hand motion from before that had done nothing but look stupid. She’d been told by her dad the broad strokes of demons throwing him and Uncle Sammy across rooms.

“I can if I’d like.” 

She snorted. 

“My power came from hell, alright? And hell is empty.” 

She stirred the beans and ignored Crowley for a while. Even this short conversation was tiring her out.

She took the pot off the fire when it was hot with a stolen oven mitt. She carried it to the kitchen and found a bowl, dumping the warm beans into it and finding a real spoon. She carried it back to the living room and handed it to Crowley. 

He frowned at it, “What the hell is this?” 

“Beans.” 

“I can see that.” 

She shook the bowl in his face. Begrudgingly he took it and started to eat. “Your weapons are over there, in the bag.” 

She went over to it and picked through it, putting her knife in her belt and slinging her shotgun over her shoulder, wincing when she had to move her right arm. 

“Cas said demons didn’t eat.” 

“Cas? You know Castiel?” 

“Knew.” 

He didn’t look surprised but nor did he look pleased, “I eat now.” 

“No mojo,” she reiterated. 

“You’re leaking soul, I don’t think you’re in any position to mock my impotence.” 

“Killed one though.” 

He met her statement with a moment of stunned silence before he stood up, beans abandoned on the coffee table. His leering grin was infectious and not entirely innocent, “You can always trust a Winchester.” 

She grinned at that, drawing the claw from the bag and shoving it into her belt. He seemed to be expecting her to say something but she had no idea what, so she walked off to hunt through the closets for a spare leather jacket. 

He watched her, hands on his hips, looking annoyed, “Hello? Are you going to possibly elaborate on that detail? How did you kill it?” 

“Claw,” she said, holding it up and dragging a women’s leather jacket from the closet. 

“If you wanted fashion advice, you could have just asked,” he said, “Daddy’s jacket is a little big for you, and you could drop some of your layers of flannel.” 

She tilted her head at him again, “It’s South Dakota.” 

“....I know what state we’re in.” 

“It’s cold.” 

“All practicality and no panache. I’m sure we could find you something more flattering.” 

She made an odd, confused sound and went back to the kitchen for heavy kitchen shears, before sitting again by the fire and beginning to cut up the jacket. 

“A waste,” he commented, but watched her regardless. 

She cut long strips of leather and laid them aside, using her pocket knife to cut the remaining flesh from the back end of the claw, working at it until it was as clean as it would get. Then she started winding the leather around it, making a makeshift handle for her makeshift knife. 

“So is that one of their claws? That’s what killed it?” 

She nodded, focused on her work. 

“How did you get it? You must have subdued it before you could cut off a claw like that.” 

“Picked me off my bike. Stabbed it. Shot it.” 

“Your father was a lot mouthier than you, you could have at least made a good story out of that.” 

She looked up at him and shrugged, not really knowing what he wanted her to say. 

“When did your father kick it anyway? How long did he make it?” 

“Died when I was eleven. Outside the bunker.” 

“...Ah, thought he’d make it longer.” 

“Me too.” 

An awkward silence brewed between them. Bobby went back to making her dagger, “They’re not that strong.” 

“Hm?” he asked, “What aren’t, darling?” 

She made a face, “The monsters. Whatever they’re called.” 

He said something in a language she didn’t know that rumbled and made her shoulder hurt.

“The fuck did you just say?” 

“It’s their name in Enochian. Don’t make me say it again.” 

“How about English.” 

“It translates to something like, _Those Who Will Cleanse Heaven_.” 

“Stupid name.” 

He laughed, “The angels named it, what do you expect?”

“What’d the demons call ‘em?” 

“Hellions.” 

“Still a stupid name,” she said. 

“You were saying it was weak,” he prompted, “The last one I saw wiped out half an army of demons.” 

“It looked… hungry. Its ribs were sticking out, sick.” 

“They devour souls, they must be running dry.” 

She nodded, “So there aren’t many people left.” 

“Might be just you and me, kitten.” 

She made another face and shoved the claw-blade into its new spot on her belt, “I’ll kill the rest of them.” 

“You’re a moron like your moron father.” 

She growled and drew her real knife. 

“Settle down, I’m just saying you don’t have to go hunting after something that’s well on its way to starving all by itself.” 

She considered this and sat back down, motioning for him to continue.

“There, see, that’s using sense. We can just wait them out and enjoy each other’s company,” he said it with odd emphasis, lifting his brow suggestively. 

She could make no sense out of his implication, “Where’s my bike?” 

“Down the road where I found you.” 

She got up and walked out into the South Dakota cold to get it.

### 2029 - The Bunker, Earth

Bobby hid behind the corner in her in her footie pajamas, listening to her father talk to Castiel in undertones. 

“It’ll just be a few days, you sure you’re ok with her?” 

“Yes, Dean, I can supervise her while you go on your hunt.” 

“I wouldn’t go but Sammy called, I’m the only one in the area, people are dying.” 

“Yes, I understand,” Castiel said, “As I said, I will be fine with her if she will be fine with me, she does not know me well.” 

“She’ll be fine with you, she likes you fine. Look, you can’t leave until I get back, even if it’s a heaven emergency. You gotta stay put with her.” 

“Of course, Dean, I would not leave her here unsupervised. If there were no choice but to leave the Bunker I would bring her with me and ensure her safety.” 

“Yeah- yeah of course. You sure you’re good?” 

“Yes, Dean, of course. I would be honored.” 

“Ok, I’ll go talk to her. Thank you, Cas, I haven’t gone on a hunt in a long ass time.” 

“You will be careful, I hope.” 

“When am I not careful?” Dean asked playfully. 

“Dean,” Cas said in a worried tone. 

“I’ll be careful, Cas, be home before you know it. Oh- hey Bobby.” 

Bobby poked her head out around the corner, “How’d you see me?” 

“Your foot’s sticking out, goofball,” he said, picking her up when she scampered over, “So you heard us, huh? I’m gonna be gone for a few days, Cas is gonna look after you.”

“What are you hunting?” she asked, laying her head on his shoulder. 

“Dunno yet, I’ll tell you when I get back.” 

“When are you gonna leave?” 

“Tonight, it’s important.” 

“Ok, Daddy,” she said, “Can you still tuck me in before you go?” 

“Course I can, I think it’s about that time.” 

“What happens if I have a bad dream?” She asked, burrowing into her father’s flannel shirt. 

“I will watch over you, Bobby,” Cas said at once. 

She looked up at her father who smiled at her so she smiled at Cas too, “You gotta check all the sigils before I go to sleep.” 

Cas answered her with utter seriousness, “Of course, Bobby, I would not dream of allowing you to fall prey to demons or their ilk.” 

“Ok, come on, bedtime, you can look over the sigils while I tuck her in, Cas.” 

“Are the sigils inscribed in the walls of the bunker insufficient?” Cas asked, following them as they continued to Bobby’s bedroom, “Why are further sigils necessary?” 

Dean ran a hand over Bobby’s hair, tucking it behind her ear, “Just an extra precaution.” 

Dean laid her in her bed and pulled the covers over her, sitting on the edge of the bed, “Ok, kiddo, what do you wanna hear tonight?” 

Cas looked over the pink sigils curiously, “You were very thorough, Dean.” 

“Course I was, now hush, what story, kiddo?” 

“The tulpa,” she said, already sleepy. 

“Tulpa it is,” Dean said, feeling Cas’ eyes on him as he told a cartoonish and bloodless rendition of his and Sam’s adventure with the Tulpa in Richardson. 

She fell asleep halfway through and Dean kissed her temple then stood up, “Come on, Cas,” he said quietly, putting his hand on Cas’ shoulder and leading him out. “Leave the door cracked open like this, and leave the lamp on.” 

“I remember when I was a human I preferred to sleep in darkness,” he said, “You have also told me as much.” 

“She’s a kid, she’s scared of the dark.” 

“But not of a Tulpa? I admit I am surprised you tell her stories of your hunts, although I would assume that in reality it was not quite as innocent as your telling.” 

“She’s living in a Men of Letters Bunker, what’s she not gonna find out about monsters? I’m just trying not to, you know, scar her for life with gruesome stories.” 

“I see… and if she asks me to tell her stories about monster hunts?” 

“Just tell her something, keep it G rated.” 

“I will do my best, and I can cook well enough to keep us alive.”

“I gotta go, Cas, don’t burn the Bunker down.” 

“Be safe, Dean. Were our situation different I would come with you.” 

“I know you would, Cas, someday.” 

“Yes, it does always seem to be some day.” 

“Well… I’m already packed, I’m gonna hit the road.” 

“Goodbye, Dean.” 

Dean held his gaze for a long moment then turned away and headed out of the bunker. 

Cas remained motionless in the hallway, looking at the spot where Dean had disappeared around the corner. He did not need to sleep and felt more anxiety than he had let on about watching over Bobby. Of course, it should not be much trouble, but an error here would cut him from Dean’s heart forever. It was his child. 

He had been told plenty of times by Dean himself that lurking over someone as they slept was ‘ _creepy_ ’ so he remained in the hallway just outside her door, hands in his pockets. 

Cas heard Bobby wake a little past two in the morning, his awareness of her aura and soul alerted him that she was frightened, although she remained firmly in her bed. 

Unsure of himself, he knocked lightly on the door, “Bobby?”

“I want Daddy,” she whimpered, blankets pulled up around her little face. 

“Your father is working. He will not return for a few days at least. I will have to suffice. Did you suffer a nightmare? They frequently torment your father.” 

Her small face crumpled in a frown, “Dad gets nightmares too?” 

“Yes. Of his time in Hell or Purgatory primarily.” 

“Daddy went to Hell? Was it scary?” 

“I recall having told you that. He was in Hell for forty years, which, I am certain, was a trying experience. I besieged Hell’s walls and returned him to Earth.” 

“Can you tell me about saving Dad?” she asked. 

He crossed the room and sat on the edge of the bed where Dean had, “Yes. I can. At that time I had not been on Earth for a millenium, rather I was stationed with a garrison in Heaven.” 

She seemed to be waking up more rather than going magically to sleep as she had for Dean, “What’s a garrison?” 

“An organized band of soldiers placed in a fortress or outpost in order to provide a guard. I was its captain.” 

“You’re a soldier?” 

“...I was then,” he said slowly, “I am… I am no longer.” 

“K, so what happens next?” 

“Of course. I was instructed to retrieve the Righteous Man, that is your father, from Hell as he had broken the first seal on the Lucifer’s cage when he had turned to…” he caught himself before he said it and reasoned that ‘scarring her for life’ might include telling her details about her father’s stint as one of Hell’s supreme torturers, “when he had turned to… bad things.” 

He was proven right when even this made her gasp, “Daddy did bad things? Did he poop his pants on purpose?” 

Cas could not help but recall the time Dean had thrown Cas out of this very bunker barely a day after when he had arrived, newly human, many years before. Nor the indignity of working at the Gas-n-Sip, Dean nowhere to be seen. He smiled a little before answering gravely, “Yes. That’s what he did.” 

“Was it hard to get him?” 

“Yes. Hell is a vast place, the souls are kept in a singular part. Even angels cannot enter wherever they wish, they must use special doors. The demons were no fools and lifted great walls between the doors and their souls. It was necessary to besiege those walls and tear them asunder. That is why he remained there for forty years, it took a great deal of time to succeed.” 

She crawled over and leaned against him, “How’d you get into the walls?” 

“We discovered a weak point, I did not discover what had created the weakness, but it allowed us to break the walls and pour through and begin the battle in earnest. I lost many soldiers fighting through their ranks. Your father even fought me, when last I reached him.” 

“Why’d he fight you?” 

“He had nearly become a demon. He no longer knew he wanted to leave.” 

“What’d he do when he met you?” 

A smile curved Castiel’s lips, “He turned his knife upon me and stabbed me. Fortunately, his paltry weapon could do very little.”

“He stabbed you? He only stabs monsters.” 

Cas patted her head soothingly, “He was only confused. And it did no lasting damage. It was a… habit of his. Now, are you prepared to go back to sleep?” 

“No. I’m hungry.” 

“I believe it is imperative to the wellbeing of a child to maintain a disciplined schedule.” 

“Huh?” she asked. 

“You can eat breakfast at seven am.” 

She gave him a very Dean-like look and got up on her own, “I want Lucky Charms.” 

He wasn’t sure his authority extended to physically stopping her from getting herself Lucky Charms so he was reduced to following her to the kitchen, “Bobby, you are to return to your bedroom and sleep.” 

“No,” she said and kept getting herself cereal. 

“If your father were here he would undoubtedly agree with me.” 

“Nuh-uh,” she said as if it were an argument. 

Cas frowned but didn’t want to call Dean barely a few hours into his stint as caretaker just to complain she wasn’t listening to him. 

Instead he watched her eat her bowl of Lucky Charms and drink the sugar milk. Halfway through she was flagging, by the time she finished she lay her little head on the tabletop. 

Castiel sighed and lifted her out of her chair, carrying her back to her bedroom. His heart constricted gently when her head nuzzled his shoulder and she fell asleep before he’d even laid her down. 

He tucked her blankets around her and touched two fingers to her forehead to prevent her dreaming further.

### 2045 AD - Just Outside Sioux Falls, SD, Earth

“Up, gotta move,” Bobby said, nudging Crowley with her knee as she stood over him. 

He opened his eyes and sneered at her, “I’m awake, cut it out.” 

She left him on the couch and walked to the fireplace, squatting to stir her Spaghetti-o’s. “It’s morning. Gotta move,” she said again. 

“Some of that for me?” he asked, sitting up. 

She looked over, tilting her head in confusion, “No.” 

His scowl deepened and he got up, glaring at her all the way to the kitchen to see if there was something else he could loot for breakfast. She ate from the pan as he clanked around, grumbling, finally returning with an open can of pineapple. 

“So where do you suggest we go, kitten?” 

“Away. We’re too close. They’re at Singer Garage.” 

“Singer- Singer Garage?” He asked, indignation dripping from his voice, “What the bloody hell are they doing there?” 

“Didn’t get to ask,” she said, slurping back the remainder of her spaghetti-o’s before standing up, “You need a bike. Cars are too big and too much gas.” 

“I have been doing fine walking.” 

“I’ll teach you to drive it.” 

“I hardly need you teaching me,” he snapped, “I corralled the demons into an order that was twice what I had found, I bargained the souls from countless stinking humans, I trained fleets of hellhounds!” his voice rose to a shout, “I was the _King of Hell_!”

She furrowed her brow at him and tilted her head again, waiting for him to be finished, “Ride on the back of mine for now. We can find you your own when we have more space between us and them.” 

“I’m sure you’d do better riding on the back.”

Her lip curled and she narrowed her eyes at him, wondering if she was going to have to fight him for the bike. Her hand slid slowly to her knife at her belt. 

He held up his hands, “Alright, alright, kitten, you win. I’ll ride on the back if it means getting away from the Hellions.”

“Still a stupid name.” 

“Come up with a better one then,” he snapped. 

She thought a second then brightened up at an old memory of dinner with her father. She said, “Sweet Baby Rays.”

Crowley stared at her, “I beg your pardon?”

She gave him a shit-eating grin, “Soul food.”

Crowley groaned, “Squirrel’s little kitten aren’t you?”

“Huh?”

“Just get on your bike.”

Crowley climbed onto the little motorcycle after her and she tensed to feel someone so close that she could feel him breathing. It was worse when she kicked off, turning up the side streets toward the highway. At a certain speed she recognized that she could kill him if she crashed. He’d have to get his own bike, she didn’t like that sort of weight. 

She took them out of South Dakota, as straight south as she could manage, no use going north and deeper into the cold.

Halfway through Nebraska she pulled over, “Gas is getting low. Might as well stop here.” 

“Do you think we’ve gone far enough?”

She looked at him for a bit, puzzling through the first earnest thing he’d said, “As far as we’ll get. Don’t wanna travel at night.” 

“Afraid of the dark, little Winchester?” 

She smiled at the name, “Sure. Headlight and noise from the bike for all them to see and just darkness for us.”

He made a petulant little face, “Then I suppose this is as far as we’ll get tonight.”

She took them to a supermarket first, parking the bike and getting her sawed-off, checking and loading it first as always before she was ready. Crowley didn’t move. She watched him expectantly. 

“Did you want me to tell you how pretty you look?” He asked, confusion and annoyance in his voice. 

She pulled a face, “Don’t be stupid. Get up. You’re coming with. Supplies.”

“Surely you can handle a grocery trip alone.” 

She glanced between him and the bike and narrowed her eyes, “Come on.”

He chuckled and rose, lifting his hands in mock surrender, “Smart girl.”

They entered the store and made an awkward circle through the aisles. It wasn’t a large store but it took time, each of them trying to let the other get out ahead and not end up with someone behind them. Having him near her was like a perpetual itch. Not exactly unpleasant, and in many ways a relief after so long alone, but it demanded her constant attention. 

The grocery store had been looted while everything was happening, so the best things were gone and anything fresh was long rotten. They wouldn’t even be able to rely on the canned goods soon. It had been too long. 

“Two cans of soup, spoiled probably,” Crowley reported. 

“Old peaches, bad; beans, ok. Just black beans.” 

Crowley made a face. She supposed she should split the beans with him even if that meant both of them would still be hungry. 

“Gotta hunt. Tomorrow I think.”

“Do you know how to hunt?”

She nodded and maneuvered behind him as they exited the store. She checked the cars in the parking lot and siphoned some gas before getting back on the bike and looking for a place to stay. Crowley tapped her shoulder as they slowly drove down the main stretch and gestured toward a residential area. She nodded and took them that way. 

She took the keys with her when they parked in front of the squat little house. Crowley at least seemed as suspicious as she was of dark corners and took the time to case it out properly and make sure it was all clear. Just possums living in the basement, nothing to worry about. 

Together they entered the house, Crowley yawning and unrolling his own sleeping bag to sleep in the living room after they’d cleared each room. By the time Bobby had left the Bunker, all the beds in the houses she looted were too fetid to bother with, she too, usually laid out her sleeping bag in the living rooms. She laid hers against the wall and tucked her back against it. 

Crowley watched her, “I wouldn’t do that,” he said finally. 

“What?” 

No longer mocking, voice having almost a tremor he explained, “I saw them come through a wall. Their claws just ripped right through it, along with my… the person I was with.” 

“Person or demon?” 

Crowley watched her in the growing dark, “Does that matter?” 

She got up and pulled her sleeping bag across the room next to his. They lay back to back as the night fell around them. She did not care for the moderate jostling of his breathing behind her, but it would have the benefit of alerting her quickly of an attack. 

“So what’s the end game?” she asked, not sure he was still awake. 

“The end game?” 

“Yeah, if it’s just us and them, what’s the end game?” 

“The same as the end game always is when things look dour: survive, and wait for an opportunity.” 

“An opportunity to do what?” 

“Go to sleep,” he said, with a bit of a bite.

### 2029 - The Bunker, Earth

“What’s that gross smell?” Bobby asked, rubbing her little eyes, scooting into the kitchen in her footie pajamas. 

“It is burning pancakes,” Cas answered, small furrow in his brow. 

“Why are you burning them?” 

“It was not my intention,” he replied, “This is not one of my… primary skills. I do not need to eat so I never found a need to learn to cook.” 

“Can I have Spaghetti-o’s instead?” She asked, warily eyeing the blackened pancakes he was scraping off the griddle. 

He sighed and nodded, “Yes, that seems for the best. Where are they kept?” 

She hopped out of her chair and fetched a can from the pantry, “You gotta open it.” 

She clung close to his leg watching him peel back the pull tab top and dump it into a plastic bowl to heat up in the microwave. When it was warm he poured it into a cartoon patterned bowl and set it in front of her at the table.

“Share?” She asked, patting the chair next to her. 

“As I said, I do not need to eat. But I will keep you company.” He sat beside her.

She picked at her Spaghetti-o’s, an easy read as she exhibited the same mannerisms as Dean when she was unhappy. 

“Do you miss your father, Bobby?” Cas asked curiously, tilting his head to the side. 

“Why’d he go hunting? He should have brought me with.” 

“That would be irresponsible. You are far too young to be involved in a hunt. It would be both physically dangerous and psychologically traumatizing. It is far better for you to remain at home.” 

She continued to pout, “Yeah but why’d he go?”

Castiel considered how to answer, “Your Uncle Sam called him and said that people were in danger. It is very difficult for your father to ignore such a summons. I have found that your father’s…” he paused and trailed off, toying with how to phrase it, he smiled to himself, unaware that Bobby was not following this, “ _vocation_ is saving people. Hunting things is… incidental to this larger calling. A necessary labor at which he is well trained, not the mission of his soul.”

She glared at the Spaghetti-o’s to think, “Oh… do you do that too?”

He flushed, “I have not always been… effective. But I have always tried.” 

She began to eat slowly, remembered she was very hungry and shovelled the rest of the food into her mouth. 

He could have cleaned up properly but wished to distract her from her sorry feelings. He waved his hand and cleaned up the kitchen with a small _whoosh_. 

As planned, she was delighted, “You’re magic!” 

He smiled, “It is not magic, which is conducted with witchcraft and spellwork, although I know plenty. It is called Grace. Your father calls it ‘mojo’.” 

“Can I do it?” 

“No, you are not an angel.” 

She stuck out her tongue, “I’m bored.”

“You are very much like a fledgeling. Come, I believe that a popular game amongst them that can be adapted for you.” 

She followed him curiously to the library, “How do we play?” 

“Angel fledgelings are slow to fly, but they can do far better than you, of course, as you have no wings. But the rules are simple. Your goal is to capture me. When you have accomplished this, my goal is then to capture you.” 

“That’s just tag!” She said happily, “I’m the best at tag!” 

He looked pleased she knew the game, “Do you play it with your father?” 

“Yeah and Mary and Eddy.” 

“Are those your friends?” 

“They’re my cousins, they live on the big farm.” 

“Ah, Sam’s children. Do you see them often?” 

“Mhm all the time, we go when it’s nice out. They come here sometimes too. Ok, play now! I’m it!” She charged him, stumbling when he vanished with a _whoosh_. 

She whirled around looking for him and spotting him by the door. She charged again, only to nearly bang into the wall when he disappeared again. 

She laughed and danced around, spying him down the hall and charged a third time. 

“You will have to be more tactical than simply running at me, if you ever wish to capture me,” he said, appearing behind her the moment she got to where he had been only a second before. 

She screwed up her little face and pouted, thinking. “Wait, can I ask you a question?” 

“Yes, of course,” he said, stepping closer. 

She screamed in delight and tagged him before pelting away. Cas tilted his head and smiled, before walking after her, “Yes, very good, Bobby.” 

He was very pleased with this game, especially when she played until she fell asleep on the sofa. He took a blanket from the back of the sofa and draped it over her, watching her for a moment. He found that she looked particularly like Dean while she was sleeping; they had the same freckles and the same forlorn features. 

His phone buzzed so he stepped out of the library to answer, so as not to wake her. 

“Hello, Dean,” he said in the hallway, answering the call. 

“Hiya, Cas. How’s the kid?” 

“Napping. I believe that is healthy for one of her age. She requires more than your own four hours of rest.” 

“Huh? Oh yeah, no shit. She went down ok? She’s been skipping her naps.” 

“Yes, we played -ah- she called it tag. She is a clever tactician for one of her age.” 

“Hell yeah she is!” he whooped, “So, it’s going ok? She’s good? You’re good?” 

“Yes, how is the hunt going?” 

“Good so far, it might be a ghost, definitely something funny going on at the cemetery. Shouldn’t take long. Couple days.” 

“Are you enjoying being in the field again?” 

“Yeah, I am actually. I thought I’d just be worried the whole time.” 

“About leaving your progeny at home?” 

“Yeah, didn’t want to… you know.” 

Cas did know, and did not make him explain himself, “Dean, working while your daughter is safe and cared for by an angel of the lord is not the same as leaving two children to care for each other in a motel room.” 

Dean focused on the easiest part of that, “You know most angels of the lord would be way worse babysitters than I was when I was twelve.” 

Cas laughed, “Yes, you are correct, of course. Perhaps then it is more accurate to say that you have left her with your…” he trailed off, his courage failing. 

“You’re still my best friend, Cas, even if you were a dick for six years.” 

Cas beamed, “Then what I meant to say was that she is being cared for by your best friend who only happens to be an angel of the lord.” 

“Yeah, that sounds about right. Ok, well if things are good I should go, I’m meeting the dead guy’s sister at a cafe soon. She says she saw something.” 

“Good luck, Dean, and happy hunting.”

### 2045 A.D. - Island Park, Idaho, Earth

Bobby pulled her bike over, liking the look of a big farmhouse outside of city limits for the night. She could do some hunting here and get fresh meat. There would probably even be something in the barn. Empty of living inhabitants though they were, houses full of the soulless dead seemed to prevent wildlife and plants from moving in.

On his own bike, Crowley hadn’t noticed her pulling off and had to double back fifty yards or so before he pulled over in the gravel driveway beside her. 

“The town’s not far, let’s keep going,” Crowley complained, dismounting and wincing, not used to riding so long. His was a lot bigger than hers, some middle aged dad’s monster Harley. 

She shrugged at him, not able to negotiate how to go both where she wanted to go and where he did. She’d been so close to him for the last month and he talked _so much_. 

“Suit yourself,” she said, but didn’t re-mount her bike, unbuckling the rifle from the side to take it through the barn. 

“We can loot better in town.” 

“We can hunt better here,” she said back. 

He growled impatiently, “I will leave you here.” 

She watched him for a moment, then said, “Do what you want.” 

He held her gaze, his eyes smoldering with some vestigial glimmer of demonic ire. They waited each other out. She tilted her head to the side, canny enough to know he was playing some sort of game, but not sure what. 

“Come into town, kitten,” he said, attempting to sound soothing. 

“Why d’you keep calling me that?” she asked, lip curling a little. 

“I’ll tell you if you come with me to town.” 

“Don’t care that much. This place is better. I can hunt here.” 

“You stubborn little ox!” he snapped, stamping his foot. 

Her hands tightened on the rifle and her eyes hardened, “Get out of here, go into town.” 

He swung his leg back over the Harley, “Goodbye, Winchester.” 

He drove off and her brain instructed her to feel sorrow, it _had_ been nice to have another person around. She, however, found it difficult to be anything but relieved. She listened to the quiet around her after his motorcycle had stopped rumbling, enjoying that she could hear the wind in the long grass. 

She hefted her rifle and headed into the barn. 

It was still plenty light enough that shoving the sliding door open flooded the floor with light. She shot at the movement in the corner on instinct, hitting it squarely. The shuffling animal fell bloody to the dirt. She left it for now, taking a slow circle around the barn for anything else, then slinging the rifle across her back to climb the ladder into the loft. 

She pulled herself up and looked around. Sunlight came in through broken slats in the walls and cut dusty shafts of light into the rotting hay. She looked away. 

The farm’s children had come running here to hide. Two of them, slaughtered among the hay. Shrunken and dried, they looked so very small. Of course, running to a hayloft had done nothing to stop the winged horrors that came and devoured all they found. A little girl and slightly older boy. A boy and girl dead in a barn was too familiar.

The usual revulsion at beholding these soulless bodies welled up under Bobby’s skin when she drew near, but the situation was too close to how she had found Eddy and Mary to give in to it. She edged forward, looking at them, the boy was in denim overalls that hadn’t yet rotted away, the tiny girl was halfway beneath her brother, her clothing so small there were still snaps at the shoulders. 

“Hey, kiddo,” she said softly, forcing herself to her knees beside the youngest child, “I’m sorry. This is all I can do.”

She faltered many times before she could lift the corpse into her arms, struggling to keep her muscles from betraying her and dropping the husk to the ground. Instead, she pressed it to her chest with one arm, getting up to hobble down the ladder one armed.

“This doesn’t matter.” she grumbled to herself. There were no souls to appease, no spirits to lay to rest. This was a waste of sunlight. 

She walked through the gathering dark to a tree beneath the once-white house. Clover grew here among the grass. She laid the child down and righted her little toddler skirt. She returned to the barn for the brother, laying the siblings beside each other. 

Only then did she enter the house, even if it was too dark to be advisable. She could feel them emanating like a void from the kitchen. Why did so many of these people flee to their kitchen when they saw doom coming?

The man had once been big, but he was light enough to carry now, desiccated as he was. Bobby lifted him easily off the hardwood floor by herself. His Carhartt coat flapped open when she carried him out, laying him to one side of his children. At least this time she could carry him and did not need to drag him outside by the armpits. By the time she had their mother, it was well and truly dark. She returned to the kitchen only once more, now needing to use precious battery life on her flashlight to find what she needed. 

She rifled through the cupboards, pushing aside fetid flour and brown sugar that was like a rock, pulling out a canister of salt. 

Salt in her pocket, she went back to her bike, getting the plastic gasoline jug out and siphoning gas she could not afford to lose from her own tank. 

Gasoline and salt in hand, she returned to the bodies, looking at them in the rising moonlight. She twisted the cap of the salt open, feeling it scrape beneath her fingers. She poured it reverently over the bodies, watching it scatter over them, fill the divots their dried skin made around their ribs. When the canister ran empty she put it down and lifted the gas can instead. She tipped it over them, the astringent sacrifice sliding over them and glistening in the starlight. 

She stepped back and lit a match, tossing it among them. They went up in flame, heat blazing her face. She closed her eyes, letting the fire warm her, orange behind her eyelids. 

She watched the fire burn for catharsis but also for self-preservation; it wouldn’t do to let the long grass catch. The bright light ruined her night vision, but she could still hear the Harley rumbling back up the road toward the farm. She did not fully understand the game that had been afoot before he’d run off, but she did have the sense that she had won.

She heard it grow its loudest not far off, then cut, and she heard shuffling and then footsteps through the grass approaching her. Thus, she was not surprised when Crowley spoke at her side. 

“What’s this?” 

“The family. Found the kids up in the loft.” 

“So you… salted and burned them? There’s no souls left to haunt the place, love.” 

“Hunter’s funeral.” 

“Were they hunters?” He asked, his tone suggesting he knew very well the answer. 

She shrugged, “Only funeral I know.” 

“What, you never watched any movies?” he prodded.

“For fuck’s sake, Crowley,” she growled then laughed a little, “Alright, it’s burning out. I shot an opossum, care for something hot for dinner?” 

Even in the semi-darkness she could see his lip curl, “I have certainly fallen far.” 

She turned from the dying pyre and clapped him on the back, “Come on, Crow, I think you’re the finest man on Earth.” 

“Oh, get fucked.”

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

“Dean,” Cas croaked, opening the Bunker door for him, returning from his hunt after four days of absence. 

It was almost midnight. Dean was bathed in moonlight, speckled with blood, his eyes shining. 

“How’s Bobby?” he asked, coming so very close to Cas as he crossed the threshold, closing the door behind him. 

“She is well, sleeping of course at this hour,” Cas said, “She missed you greatly, but I found it no trouble to care for her. How did your hunt go? Was it successful?” 

“Yeah, ghouls, couple of ‘em munching on people. Got it all cleaned up.” 

The hallway was very dimly lit and Dean was not moving to take them to the library or war room to talk. Even bloody as he was, he was not shoving his way to a quick shower and bed. Castiel found himself not minding the limited space available in the hall, so he said nothing about it.

Castiel smiled at him, unable to keep from wandering just a step closer, “And the world is safer because of it. Perhaps you can hunt more frequently now. If you would like.” 

“Fuck yeah,” he said, “Missed it. Gets your blood moving.” 

Cas touched the back of Dean’s hand, “You are covered in blood.”

Dean looked at their hands, “Cas?” His tone suggested he was not concerned about the blood. 

“Dean,” Cas replied, fingers almost, but not quite, curling around Dean’s own. 

“I should go clean up.” 

Cas whipped back his hand, “Yes, I suppose. It would be unseemly to allow Bobby to see you in this state.” 

“Yeah, I’ll uh- see you in the morning, I guess.” 

“Yes, I would like to hear more about your hunt.” 

“I won’t be able to sleep for awhile, yet. I can tell you after I shower and change. Why don’t you grab a couple beers and meet me in my room?” 

Cas sincerely hoped the light was too dim for Dean to see how his cheeks blazed, “As you wish, Dean.” 

They walked up the hall together, splitting off so Cas could go to the kitchen and Dean could go to clean up. 

Cas felt awkward, wasting a great deal more time than needed to collect two beers so that Dean could shower, change, and check in on Bobby before settling in to his room. 

It was only then, when he knew Dean had returned to his room first, that Cas knocked and came in, handing Dean his beer. 

Dean sat on the bed, legs outstretched and leaning on the headboard. He closed his eyes and took a sip. 

“Bobby was out like a light, you must have done a good job getting her down to bed. Did you tell her stories? Come here, sit down, don’t lurk over me.” 

Cas tentatively sat next to him, “I did, I told her about my first battle with the agents of hell when I was barely more than a fledgeling, not yet assigned to a garrison.” 

Dean looked over at him, “Sounds like a hell of a story.” 

“She enjoyed it. Of course I did not tell her the taunting the demons employed. They can be crass.” 

Dean huffed a laugh, “Sure can. Give me the director’s cut.” 

Cas blinked at him, “What?”

Dean laughed, “Tell me the unedited version.” 

“The demon story? I thought you wanted to tell me about the ghouls.” 

“I’ll tell you tomorrow.” Dean set the half empty beer on his nightstand and let his head fall onto Cas’ shoulder, “Tell me about the fight. Did you have a vessel?” 

“Yes, that of a young Egyptian boy, he was my first vessel. Luckily he survived what I needed of him and I was able to return his vessel to him shortly after inhabiting it.” 

“I like it when the kids live in the end, guess I’m getting soft.” 

Cas chuckled, “Dean, you have always been soft in that regard.” 

Dean closed his eyes, “Did you win then, against the demons?” 

“Yes, they were my first set of orders, to go to Earth and protect a small Egyptian town from the trickery of a pair of demons. It was difficult only in that I was young and lacking experience” 

“Did you get ‘em with your angel blade or did you smite them and get all glowy?” 

“I smote them. I did not yet have an angel blade of my own.” 

Dean jerked a little as he struggled not to drift off to sleep. 

“Perhaps I should go,” Cas said, “And allow you to rest.” 

“Nah,” Dean said, so tired he said what was on his mind, “Stay.”

### 2046 A.D. - Lawrence Township, Ohio

“Shit, Crowley!” Bobby hooted, “Haven’t you ever shot a gun before?” she cackled. 

He snarled at her, then settled himself back with the rifle, trying to line up a shot at the next bottle she’d put on the fence. 

“Take your time, man,” she said, “You got it.” 

He shot again and the bottle remained right where it was. 

She couldn’t resist laughing at him again, “Jesus, didn’t you need to be able to handle a gun as a demon-king? Or did you just snap your fingers at everybody?” 

“I have used a gun plenty of times. I could have shot your oh-so-tough father more than once, I’ll have you know.” 

“Why? Were you aiming at the broad side of a barn thirty feet away from him?” She asked. She waited for some sort of response and grinned when it didn’t come, “Oh, I got it, you mojo-ed your way to good aim, huh? Tough luck, sport.” 

“I’ll shoot you here.” 

She could have told him correctly that he’d rather be mocked by her than have nobody to talk to, but instead she just lifted an eyebrow, “Not sure you could hit me, champ.” 

“Show me again,” he said and handed the rifle back. 

She took his spot, sighting the rifle, and squeezed the trigger. The bottle shattered off the fence. “My dad taught me, I practiced alone after he died.” She reloaded the rifle and handed it back, “Keep at it, you’ll need to be able to shoot.” 

“Why? Shooting doesn’t kill them.” 

“It kills bears and coyotes, and it’ll take out their wings, knock ‘em out of the air.” 

He smirked a little and returned to his practice. The two of them let silence grow between them. 

They ran through their stolen box of ammo, Crowley having improved only marginally and they got up, stowing the gun on her bike. Crowley leaned against his own. 

“Your dad teach you the other things too? Hunting deer and stealing gasoline?” 

“Who else would have?”

“What about Sam? Did you check to make sure he was dead too?” 

“Yeah,” she said after a while, “That’s the first place I went after I left the Bunker, I’d been there a bunch with my dad. I already knew Uncle Sammy was dead though, or Dad would have had him with when he… came back. Anyway… I burned them.” 

“His family?”

“Yeah, Aunt Eileen and my cousins. Mary and Eddy.” 

He huffed, “Good for Moose. I couldn’t find him when it all started happening.” 

“Why’d you go looking?” 

“Oh, kitten, if you’d seen what I have you would know that when an apocalypse starts you should always look for a Winchester at the center of it.” 

She opened her mouth to reply then closed it, cocking her head to the side, “Crow, you hear that?” 

He listened too and scowled, “Wings. I suppose you’ve got that knife you made.” 

She nodded and slid it from her belt where it always rested. 

“Run or hunt?” He asked, watching the skies. 

“If it’s close enough to hear we’d better hunt, dontcha think?” 

“Begrudgingly,” he glanced from the sky to Bobby, “Give me the knife.” 

She scowled, “No.” 

“You have just seen that I can’t shoot. You take the rifle, shoot it down, then I’ll kill it.” 

“No proof you’re not just as bad with a knife as a gun. And no reason I can’t do both.” 

“You are going to have to trust me at some point,” he said, grabbing her wrist. 

She tilted her head and looked at him for a moment, “Ok, you take the sawed-off and head into the field, I’ll take the rifle and the knife. Try to get its wings. You can’t kill it like that but it’ll do damage. And even you should be able to hit it if it’s right up in front of you. We ground it, I jump it.” 

“Excuse me!” he snapped, “I’m the _bait_?” 

“Yeah, trust me,” she said back to him.

“On second thought we ought to run-”

“Shut up, we got to kill it to get you your own knife.” When he didn’t immediately respond, she handed over the shotgun, getting herself hunkered down under a tree where she couldn’t be swooped at. 

Crowley glared and cursed under his breath but did as he was told, white knuckling the sawed-off and watching the sky above him. 

It appeared first as a dot against the blue sky, circling slowly overhead, growing larger and larger. 

When it decided to strike it twisted in the air and streaked toward him, lower talons extended, like a great and terrible bird of prey, mangy wings outstretched behind it. 

Crowley shouted and shot at it wildly. 

Bobby waited, needing a clean shot, the creature plummeting down down down, larger and larger, eyes glistening with greedy desperation for Crowley’s excuse for a soul. 

Finally, she leapt from her hiding spot and leveled her gun, squeezing the trigger and feeling the recoil snap against her shoulder. 

The shot sniped through the joint of one of its wings, making it spiral, careening off to the side and smashing hard into the ground. It was not down long, pushing itself up and screeching at them. 

The scream was so loud they both wavered, clutching their ears, momentarily disoriented. Crowley recovered first, putting as much buckshot into it as he could. She’d been right, at this distance even he only missed a few shots. 

The force of the impacts pushed the emaciated thing back as they never would have if it were at full strength, giving Bobby time to draw her dagger-claw and race behind the creature, sprinting toward it. It turned and swung its heavy claws at her, missing her by only inches as she dropped back into the grass. 

Crowley shot it in the foot and it howled and stumbled. Bobby leapt at it, digging her dagger into its back. She wrenched it out and drove it down again for good measure. 

The creature screeched and fell, Bobby on top of it, holding her dagger, blood splattered over her. She brought the dagger down a few more times, ravaging its back. 

When she was beyond convinced it was dead, she rolled off of it, sitting up. She wiped her hands on the long grass then grinned at Crowley. 

“Got him.” 

Crowley smiled right back, offering a hand to pull her to her feet, “Why, yes we did. Now let’s harvest him before his friends come.” 

She nodded and rubbed at the wounds the first monster had left in her shoulder over a year ago. 

“How are those healing?” 

“Skin healed fine. Don’t hurt any less.” 

Crowley didn’t have a response, but flicked a sharp knife from his pocket, beginning on one of its hands to cut free its claws. 

She did the same on the other hand, this time taking the time to cleave all five of them free. 

“This one’s a little more robust than the last one,” she commented as they worked. 

“Is it? Chance I suppose.” 

“You don’t think it found-”

“No,” Crowley cut her off, “I am quite certain it hasn’t found any souls to eat.” 

She shrugged, “I guess we’ll get a better idea if we find more. Now get working, old man, I wanna clear out of here.” 

“Agreed, let’s head west, I can show you Los Angeles. I was always a fan. You can get something decent to wear there.” 

“So can you,” she said back, cracking the last of her claws off.

“Excuse you, I look impeccable.” 

She shoved the claws into a plastic bag she had shoved in her backpack, “You look dirty. And cold.” 

He shoved his own claws into a bag and scowled, “You would prefer if I dressed more like a lumberjack?” 

“I don’t give a damn how you _look_ , Crow, I said you were dirty and cold.” 

“This was a ten thousand dollar suit.” 

“...alright.”

“It was bespoke! The finest tailor in Napoli designed it!” 

She looked curious, “Where’s Napoli?” 

He blinked at her, “Are you… are you serious? Where were you educated, you little heathen?” 

“The Bunker.” 

He sneered, “It is an excellent suit. The _best_.” 

“And now it’s all dirty and you shiver in the wind.” 

“...There was a time I didn’t get cold.” 

“Yeah yeah yeah, mojo and hellfire, get over it.” 

“I was the King of Hell!” he snapped. 

She ignored him, looking at the corpse thoughtfully, “They can starve.” 

“You have not improved your ability to hold a coherent conversation. But yes, clearly they can starve.” 

“So… if they _can_ starve and one was more starved than this one over a year ago… then either they have a food source or they starve at way different speeds.” 

Crowley curled his lip, “You’re going to do something moronic.” 

She nodded, “Yeah, I’m going back up to South Dakota. See what’s going on at Singer Garage. There might have been more there.”

“Might have been. And there’s no proof that they will still be there.” 

“You’re not wrong, but it’s the best I got.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incredible thanks AS ALWAYS to chemcat92 for her work storyboarding and beta-ing this story. Her insight is incisive and appreciated. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!! Comments are adored!!!!


	3. Chapter 3

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

Cas looked up as Dean walked into the room and smiled at the sight of him, then quickly asked, “When will you and Bobby leave for Sam’s farm?” to cover it up.

Dean clapped Cas on the shoulder, grinning at him, practically bouncing with glee, “Change of plans, Cas!”

Cas frowned, “I am not sure why changing plans to see your brother would make you so happy, Dean, you have said you miss him. And Bobby misses her cousins. Have you fought?” 

“Me and Sammy? No. They’re coming here instead. Well, Sam and the kids are. Eileen’s on a hunt.” 

Cas smiled, “Ah! That _is_ good news! I have dearly missed Sam. Will the children be alright playing here? There are a lot of weapons.” 

“Yeah, it’ll be fine. I baby-proofed most of it when I brought Bobby here.” 

“Was she a baby then?” 

“Yeah. Six months old.” 

“And you were here with her alone?” Cas’ smile faltered imagining Dean alone and broken-hearted, trying to father on his own. Had only he known. 

Dean disengaged from the topic, “Eddy’s six, Mary’s three. They’ll have a great time. You’ll love ‘em. And while Sam’s here maybe you can tell us about what’s going on in heaven.” 

Cas now saw through the change in plans, “Is that why you’ve invited them? I thought that you did not wish to involve yourself.” 

“Like you said, it doesn’t matter if we’re involved or not. If it goes south we’re all in it anyway.” 

“I am being hunted by heaven, Dean. I have no allies left. I fear that if I leave this Bunker I will not live long.”

“You got a couple of allies left.” 

“Who?” he asked, incredulous.

“Me.”

The word hung in the air like perfume, Cas’ mouth curved into a tender smile. Dean stared at him, opening his mouth to speak twice before he grimaced and got back on task, “Uhh… what’s hunting you, Cas?” 

“An angel named Astor.” 

“One angel? We iced archangels before, we can take one winged freak.” 

“He’s canny, strategic, and he has many allies.” 

“And that’s why you’re here, to hide out from him?” 

“Yes.” 

“I know how much you like being out in the action, Cas, can’t be fun to be stuck here.” 

“Dean… being here, with you and your family… it’s no punishment. It makes me concerned that I have gone off track, made a miscalculation.” 

“What’s that friggen mean?”

“I only mean that it seems… after all that I have done… I should not be able to hide somewhere that is so enjoyable.” 

“Don’t go getting sappy on me.” 

“I mean what I say, Dean. I have never had a chance to stay here long with you, some circumstance has always forced me out.” 

“Nothing’s gonna force you out this time, not til we get the angel stuff figured out. Then you can come and go as you please.” 

“Perhaps I could… stay.” 

“You want to? With me and Bobby?” 

“If you will have me.” 

“Course we’ll have you. Long as you want.” 

Cas looked away. 

“We’ll figure it out, Cas, we always do.”

Cas touched Dean’s arm, “Perhaps you and Bobby and I can watch the cartoon western that you suggested this afternoon.” 

He smiled, “ _Home on the Range_?” he laughed, “Yeah, alright. It’s a dumb movie but the kid’ll like it.” 

“She would like popcorn.” 

“Yeah, me too,” Dean said, “Alright, she oughta get up from her nap now anyway. How’d you get her to go down?” 

“It was very simple, I told her a story as you suggested.” 

“Yeah? Which one?” 

“About the Leviathan, working with Crowley.” 

“Jesus freaking Christ, Cas. She doesn’t need to hear about you getting jumped by a thousand Leviathan and dying in a lake.” 

“I am aware of that, Dean. I told it as an allegory. It is appropriate to teach children lessons through stories.” 

“What lessons are you teaching?”

“Do not trust Crowley.” 

Dean burst out laughing, “Alright, good lesson. Go put some popcorn in the microwave and I’ll get the kid.” 

Cas smiled and did as he was told, going to the kitchen for snacks. He returned with the popcorn and sat on the other side of the couch from Dean, who put Bobby down to snuggle in the middle. 

Dean turned on the movie, helping Bobby get her blanket adjusted over all three of their laps.

As the movie played Bobby cuddled into Cas’ side and put her head on his arm. Dean looked across her and caught Cas’ eye. He gave him a soft smile.

### 2046 A.D. - Sioux Falls, SD, Earth

Bobby pressed her back against a rusted out car in the junkyard behind Singer Garage. She couldn’t see them but there were so many that she could _feel_ them. They changed some quality of the air, charged it with ozone. She peered up over the hood of the car at the big house. It was in rough shape, the windows broken and paint peeling even worse than the usual suburban places she looted. 

She looked over at Crowley who was crouched behind a car a few feet away and shrugged, dropping to the dirt and army crawling one car closer to the house. When she was safely behind it, she came up to look through its broken windows at the front door.

The door to the house swung open and a pale creature emerged, stretching in the morning sunlight. His wispy hair was wild and dirty. As he walked out into the yard the sun shone behind him, lighting it up like a halo about his head. Even with his mouth split open to make room for all those fangs, she recognized the angel he had been: Astor.

Dark, fetid wings sprouted from his back. To accommodate them, he’d stripped to the waist, but he still wore dress pants, dirty and frayed though they were. He flexed his deadly claws and his pale eyes scanned the junkyard. His nostrils flared over sharp cheekbones.

She remembered what he’d looked like as an angel outside the Bunker. She’d only ever seen him through the round window in the door, speaking to Cas and her dad. Conflicting emotions rose under her skin. He was a monster to be hunted, a threat to be feared, and a familiar face. 

She forced herself to focus and tore her eyes from his face to his exposed frame. This troubled her. A year ago she’d fought a Baby Ray in this place that had been weak and dying. She could remember the way its skin had stretched, pale and gray, over its ribs. It had wobbled on its feet. Astor’s frame may have been dirty, but it was not malnourished. He looked strong, alert. 

Astor half turned and looked back into the house, speaking to another. He spoke in Enochian, quietly enough that Bobby could not hear him, but her shoulder wound throbbed and the car rattled. It was no wonder that every window and windshield in the junkyard was shattered. 

Crowley crawled up beside her, glaring curiously at the one-time-angel, “Did you know Astor? Annoying little piece of work.” 

She nodded, “I knew of him. I was too young to be dealing with angels. Did you?” 

“Of course.” 

“Can you hear what they’re saying? You know Enochian.” 

He nodded, “I do, but we’re too far. We have to get closer.” 

Astor was still speaking to the other Baby Ray who remained in the house. He was turned away from them, facing the open screen door. Bobby crawled on her belly again, dragging herself as stealthily as she could to the next car. She’d be visible to the house for about a second when she went from one row of cars to the next. It was over if they saw her. Even armed with dagger-claws, she doubted she was a match for Astor, well fed as he obviously was. She might get her dagger between his ribs, but surely he’d get his own claws between hers too.

She paused right before she’d become visible and looked up, checking each of the windows of the house for someone watching before she rolled across the open dirt path. She whipped her feet in behind her after she was in the car’s cover and clutched her knees, eyes clenched shut, listening for the doom song of wings. 

Nothing came and she relaxed for a single moment until she was forced to watch Crowley try to make the same journey. He wasn’t nearly as athletic as she was and he couldn’t manage the quick roll she’d made, crawling instead, moving so madly it would have been funny in any other circumstance. Instead, it almost made her heart stop. 

She pulled him into cover the second he was within reach and they pressed themselves to the metal, trying to breathe quietly. 

It was just in time. Astor turned back from the door, the other Baby Ray at his side, finally visible. This one too was well fed. Blood caked her mouth, smeared down her bare chest. Bobby gripped Crowley’s arm. The blood was red and fresh.

Astor flapped his wings, warming them up before he lifted off from the ground, his companion following him. They landed on the dented roof of a car that had been smashed up next to a wooden light pole not far from Bobby and Crowley. They spoke while they scratched their claws on the pole, sharpening them like blood smeared cats. 

Astor spoke and Crowley translated for Bobby, whispering in her ear. 

“Who did you leave with the boy? I do not trust Hannah. She is too hungry.” 

“Thaddeus,” the companion answered, “The boy is tired. We cannot drain him now. Hannah will need to stay hungry.” 

Astor shrugged. Bobby could see his back from here. She’d never gotten a good look at a Ray’s backside. The wings jutted out, leaving angry red skin around his shoulder blades. The wings themselves were haphazardly covered in feathers. She could see now that the feathers were black, the redness that could be seen in flashes coming from open sores that spread across the skin on the wings. 

“So there’s at least four here, probably more,” Bobby whispered, “Hannah, Astor, Thaddeus, and this one that I don’t know.” 

“Sarathiel,” Crowley supplied, “I never liked her.” 

She shushed him and gestured at the Baby Rays, who were speaking again. As before, Crowley served as her translator. She had to dig her fingernails into her palms to endure their speech. Their voices hurt to hear, and she could feel blood leaking out of her nose. 

“We need a more reliable food source,” Astor said, “We cannot count on taking people through doorways that we cannot ourselves enter. We need an improved spell.” 

Sarathiel nodded her agreement, “We need the books from the Men of Letters’ Bunker. The next human we fish for could go inside the Bunker for us and collect books. We would need someone to open the door.”

Astor looked uncertain, “It would be a hard thing. We have so few souls that someone would have to go hungry,” he paused and scowled, “ _hungrier_. It is hard enough to keep the boy un-eaten and _he_ is in that panic room. To get a soul all the way to Kansas? I am not certain. And I would not see the boy himself removed from his containment and taken to the Bunker, Thaddeus warns that he is canny and longs for freedom. He has come close to escape on his own already” 

“Hunger is not the only thing that makes Hannah how she is. She was created too late. Maybe we should just be rid of her.” 

Bobby glanced at Crowley and he shrugged, as lost as she was.

Another Baby Ray, Hannah maybe, stumbled from the house. She moved differently than the other two, more like the others Bobby had seen: her head jerking and wings stretching, sniffing like an animal. She screeched, jaws unhinging like a snake as she howled, her voice forcing Bobby and Crowley to cover their ears. 

Sarathiel looked at Astor, “How soon do you think we can collect the boy’s blood to fish for another?”

“A week at least. He is so young and small. He does not have endless blood to give.” 

Astor frowned as Hannah leapt from the porch, flapping her wings but landing hard on the roof of a car only two away from Bobby and Crowley. She sniffed the air. 

Bobby’s blood ran cold as Hannah’s head turned to look in their direction. She tugged on Crowley’s arm and fell back to the dirt, crawling under the car, him right behind her. 

They could hear Hannah launch herself off her car and felt her land on the roof of the very car they were under. Crowley huddled closer. They gripped each other’s hands so hard that Bobby could barely feel her fingers. He couldn’t whisper the translation anymore so all Bobby could hear was their bone shaking voices all around them.

Hannah screeched above them and Bobby curled up against the pain in her shoulder and her ears. Hannah leapt from the car and landed beside it. They could see her clawed feet in the dirt. All she would have to do was bend down and it would be over. 

The screen door on the house clattered as it was thrown open and Bobby and Crowley heard something pelting across the gravel that did not sound like a Baby Ray’s clawed feet. Hannah leapt away from them and the others shouted in Enochian. They could hear fighting and rolling in the dirt. 

Bobby crawled to the edge of the car and peered out. Sarathiel and Astor were each holding one of Hannah’s emaciated arms, roughly pulling her back as she howled and screeched relentlessly, her eyes wild as she clawed out futilely. 

Another Baby Ray, who Bobby assumed must be the guard, Thaddeus, had a small, dark haired boy locked in his arms. The boy bled from his bare arm and screamed, kicking his little legs violently. He was barefoot but not dirty. In fact, other than the cut he looked well cared for. 

Thaddeus hauled the boy back into the house, who screamed the whole way. 

Bobby scooted deeper under the car, tugging at Crowley who already knew what she meant to do. They shuffled out from under the car, crouching and moving away from the house, using the struggle with Hannah to buy them time to make their escape. 

Bobby was breathing hard by the time they were out of the junkyard and fleeing back toward their bikes. 

“We need to get away from this nest,” Crowley said. 

“Away? No,” Bobby answered bluntly. 

Crowley stared at her, “We are not saving the boy.” 

She did not respond, but narrowed her eyes at him. 

“You bloody _Winchesters_ ,” he growled, “Just because the boy is getting them dinner doesn’t mean- damnit!” 

She smirked, “What, you figured it out all by yourself?” 

“The boy must be special somehow,” he said, “They talked about spellwork and obviously they need his blood for it.” 

“You know anything about spells?” 

“I was the King of Hell!” he sneered, although he still kept his voice low. 

“Yeah and your mom was a witch right? Dad told me.” 

He glared at her petulantly, “We get the boy and go to the Bunker. They must not be able to get in.” 

She nodded, “Alright, how do we get the boy? We’ll need a distraction.” 

He nodded, “I know the house, and the panic room where they’re keeping him.”

“How?”

“I was…” he smirked, “Well acquainted with your namesake, Bobby Singer.” 

She chewed on her lip, “Then I’m the bait, you go inside and get him and run. I’ll circle around and meet you in Beresford, it’s not far.” 

“Why not just meet me at the Bunker? It isn’t like we’ll have time to stop. Give me the key.” 

“No.” 

“The fate of the world may be on the line, Bobby, at least the fate of that boy’s life. Give me the key to the Bunker.” 

She looked at him, his own face imploring, “Use your sense, Winchester, don’t be naive.” 

She glared at him, wavering in indecision.

“What was he, seven or eight years old?” He said, purring, “You want to put him in even more danger than necessary?” 

She didn’t have time to stand here in this field and brood. Cas had told her so many times not to trust Crowley. Cas had made it clear, just when you think he is on your side, really on your side, he will betray you. But who would he even betray her to? She put her hand in her pocket and felt the key where she’d sewn it in. 

What did Cas know? Cas had ruined everything. And she _knew_ Crowley. She was at the end of the world with him. She tore it loose and handed it over.

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

The children screamed at each other in greeting. Eddy was the bigger by far and bowled Bobby over, the two of them wrestling on the ground and happily pummelling each other. 

“Sam!” Cas said and hugged him around the toddler in his arms. 

“I missed you, Cas. The kids will be alright for a little while, right, Dean?” 

“Sure, all the weapons are locked up tight as usual. Safe as a daycare in here. Come on, we gotta talk.” 

Dean and Sam glanced at each other while Cas led the way to the library. 

“So why is an angel hunting you?” Sam asked, accepting a drink from Dean.

“Are you sure you want to talk about this in front of your daughter?” Cas asked.

“She’s three, she’s gonna sleep through it. You wanna hold her?” 

“Yes,” Cas answered at once, and took the little girl, rocking her gently as she slept. 

“So, spill,” Dean prompted. 

“The angel, Astor. He is attempting to loose Michael from his cage.” 

“Alright, but he can’t, can he?” 

“He believes there is a way.” 

“Is there?” 

“Unfortunately, there may be. A new prophet has been awoken. She has revealed a number of… complications. The most pressing being that the seal on the Cage can be broken with ‘the last shimmer of grace from the seraph who touched the soul of the Righteous Man’.” 

“I’m the Righteous Man.” 

“Yes, Dean.” 

“... Cas… shit. Then you’re the seraph that can open the Cage. That’s why they’re after you? To drain your grace and let Michael out? For what? To restart the apocalypse?”

“Not as you are imagining,” Cas replied, brow furrowing, “The prophet, she speaks of a coming evil, an evil that will ruin the angels and devour all of creation.” 

Dean cursed and ran a hand through his hair, “So we’re back at the end of the world again? And you didn’t tell me?” 

Sam looked worried, “Will it release Lucifer too?” 

“I can’t imagine that opening the cage would release Michael and not Lucifer.”

Dean poured himself more whiskey, “Well why do they want Michael anyway? What’s he gonna do?”

Cas scowled, “There was... slightly more to the prophecy. It is said that a weapon has been forged on Earth which can vanquish heaven’s greatest foes, and that Michael must guide it.” 

“Guide?” 

“Yes, the Enochian translates cleanly. Guide.” 

“What the hell is this weapon? Some sort of nuke?” 

“Unlikely.” 

Sam sat down, “Probably more like a vessel. That’s what it was before, but that’s us, and we already knew about all that.” 

“No,” Cas said, “This is different.” 

“Different how?” Dean demanded.

“I am afraid I don’t know.” 

“Alright, alright,” Sam said, “if there’s a weapon, we’ve got to get to it before the angels do.” 

“Does this mean we’re back in?” Dean asked Sam, “Saving the world from another apocalypse?” 

Cas ran his fingers over the spine of a book, tuning out the Winchesters for a long moment. He looked down at the fragile child in his arms and he thought of tiny Bobby whom he could hear scampering around with her cousin, yelling in glee. There was so much to lose. 

Finally he spoke, although he did not look up from Mary’s little curls, “I believe that there is a ritual that can be used to stop them.” 

“A ritual?” Dean asked, “You knew about this the whole time?” 

“It is not one that I relish.”

“What’s the ritual?” 

“An ancient writing from the shores of the Dead Sea tells of those that can be awoken who may help us.”

Dean stared at him, a crease appearing in his brow. 

“Well, tell us about the ritual,” Sam pushed.

Cas kept his eyes on Dean as he spoke, “The name translates to _Those Who Will Cleanse Heaven_ ,” Cas said, “But to awaken them will take a great sacrifice.”

“What sort of sacrifice?” Sam asked. 

Cas did not have to say it, Dean, eyes boring into his own, said it for him, “You. Why is it always you?”

### 2046 A.D. - Sioux Falls, SD, Earth

Bobby shivered in the dew, crawling on her belly through the long grass to the spot she’d marked on the map. The watch Crowley had given her ticked loudly as it slid around her wrist. She glanced at it, watching the second hand move. Two minutes. 

She had nothing to do but wait. She pressed her nose to the dirt and smelled the frozen loam. It smelled clean. There were at least four of them in that house. They wouldn’t all come out. Thaddeus at least would probably stay inside and guard the boy, Crowley would have to deal with him. But they knew that. Divide and conquer. She hoped Hannah would be first out. At least Bobby had fought ones like Hannah before.

“Ok, ok, ok,” she muttered, slowly, pulling her new, looted weapon close to her, “I can do this. Three shots. Bring ‘em down.” 

She straightened the watch so she could look at the time. Another minute. It would have been comforting to think she’d see her dad on the other side, but there wasn’t another side. Even if there was, there was nothing left of her dad to cross over to it. She relaxed her muscles and pressed her face to the grass one last time, breathing in its comforting, wholesome smell. There was a bird singing somewhere. 

The watch ticked and she unclasped it, dropping it to the ground. She wouldn’t need it when it started and she didn’t want it distracting her by sliding up and down her wrist. 

She moved ten seconds too late. The watch ticked ten whole times in the grass between when she knew she had to go and when she could actually force herself to move. 

“Alright, Winchester,” she muttered to herself, “Get up and go. There’s a kid in there.” She stood up and shot her sawed-off into the air. It echoed in the field. 

A screech answered her, erupting out of the house like a banshee’s howl. Hannah launched herself from the upstairs window, wings black against the morning sky. 

She saw Bobby immediately, standing there outside the junkyard fence in the long grass. 

“Come and get me!” Bobby shouted, slinging the sawed-off back over her shoulder and hefting her new crossbow instead. 

Hannah angled her wings and shot down at her, claws outstretched. Bobby braced herself and tucked the butt of the crossbow into her shoulder. Three shots. She had to make it count. 

She waited until she could feel Hannah, her shoulder throbbing as the Ray howled. Two others were behind her, not diving yet, but she didn’t take her eyes off Hannah long enough to identify them. 

She pulled the trigger and the crossbow sprang, punching back into her shoulder. The bolt wobbled in the air but struck true, piercing through Hannah’s throat. She screamed, blood gushing out. She careened toward Bobby, a dying, jerking mass of wings and claws. Bobby rolled out of the way, barely missing being slammed into. 

Two shots left, but the weapon worked. 

Bobby clambered to her feet, looking up at the two creatures hanging in the sky above her. It was the two she had seen that morning, Astor and Sarathiel. 

“What are you? A Hunter?” Astor asked, touching down. Sarathiel touched down twenty feet away, stalking in a wide circle around Bobby. 

She held the crossbow firmly. The tips of the bolts replaced with Baby Ray claws didn’t fly particularly straight. He’d have to be close. He seemed to understand this and kept his distance. 

Sarathiel hadn’t cleaned the blood off herself; dried now, it stained her twisted form as she circled, advancing on Bobby. Astor mirrored her on Bobby’s other side. She was going to get pincered. 

“Yeah,” she said back to Astor, “A Hunter, that’s right.” 

They were too far apart, to face one she had to turn her back on the other. Astor then. She sighted her crossbow on him. She had two shots left. She would have to shoot then turn and shoot Sarathiel. Her aim had to be _perfect_.

She squeezed the trigger. The crossbow kicked back at her but the bolt went wide, careening passed Astor’s ear harmlessly. 

A screech erupted behind her, so loud it almost knocked her forward. She swung around and the crossbow was knocked from her hands. She dropped as Sarathiel’s claws slashed the air above her, where her throat had been only moments before. She kicked out, hitting Sarathiel’s knee and knocking her back a step. 

She drew her leather handled dagger-claw and scampered back enough to stand, swinging it at Sarathiel and clipping her forearm. She screamed again and Bobby’s vision went black at the edges. It was not particularly loud, but it felt unnatural, her very soul shivered as her wounded shoulder stung like it was fresh. 

She brought the blade down at Sarathiel again but her arm was seized from behind. Astor had reached her, his claws cutting into her forearm. 

She slashed wildly, Baby Ray blood spraying out as she struck home. Astor stumbled but did not fall. Claws bit across her back, slitting open her jacket to flay her skin. She screamed, falling to the grass and rolling away from the savage, clawed feet. 

Her shaking hands groped for the crossbow abandoned in the grass and she shot madly. Her last bolt did not betray her, but hit Sarathiel in the leg. She screamed and fell back. It bought her time to get to her feet and launch herself at Astor. 

She fended him off, driving him backward and forcing him to retreat. She dropped the crossbow, out of bolts, and glanced at Sarathiel. She had pulled the bolt free from her leg and stood unsteadily. Bobby charged her, angling herself at her weakened side. She ducked under Sarathiel’s striking claws and drove the blade up under her jaw. Blood poured over Bobby’s arm as Sarathiel twitched out her last breaths. 

She wrenched the dagger free and faced Astor. He had once been the great enemy, the reason Cas had done all he had. 

His wings beat the air and he leapt. He landed on her with his full weight, claws biting into her. But her claw bit right back. She sank the knife deep into his chest, his own weight driving him down upon it. He scrabbled at her, but his claws had no strength behind them. His arms fell back and the light left his eyes. 

She kicked him off and stumbled to her feet. Her injuries to her arm and back shrieked in pain; she felt torn asunder. She could not look away from the dead monster at her feet. If he could have been killed before Cas had acted, none of this needed to have happened. Her head throbbed, pain lancing down her spine, her wounds impossibly cold. 

A voice spoke, terrible in its familiarity, slurred as it was, sibilance sharp around fangs, “Is that you, Bobby Winchester? You’ve gotten so big, I hardly recognized you. You look like your father.” 

She turned. Horror and filial longing rose within her to look upon him. His hair was as it used to be, dark and messy. His eyes the same blue. The rows of teeth distorted his face, but even so she could see Castiel in his features. 

“Why did you come here, Bobby?” He asked, snapping his teeth, “I would have thought you remembered what we can do. I saw you watching through the door.” 

“You’re chattier than I remember,” she said, holding her ground.

“Is that why you’re here? Revenge?” 

She swallowed and inched forward, “This is your fault.” 

“You are resourceful,” he said, “I will give you that. Dean never managed to kill any of us. Of course we were stronger then, gorged on souls. It was you who killed Efram and cut off his claw a year ago? I wondered.” 

“Yeah, it was me,” her hand trembled around the dagger. She was breathing hard, she could feel the white light coming out of her wounds, the damage to her soul burning like ice in her blood. 

His head was tilted as he regarded her, curious, no hint of mourning for his fallen comrades. 

“Where did you get the crossbow?” 

She grinned, “Walmart.” 

“And you replaced the tips with the ends of claws. Clever. Your dad really would be proud of you.” 

“Shut up.” 

He grinned, rows of fangs flashing in the sun. 

An engine revved to the east, both of their heads snapped to look. 

Castiel sniffed the air and howled, “ _Crowley?!_ ” He bent his legs and launched himself into the air. 

She whipped the sawed-off into her hands and shot him. The buckshot ripped through his wing and sent him spinning, hitting the frozen ground hard. 

She had her shot but ran instead, pelting through the grass toward her bike. Castiel roared after her, wing already healed over. She mounted her bike and shot wildly behind her, hearing him screech and fall again. It bought her time to kick the bike into life and move.

But he was faster and batted at the back of her bike. It slid out from under her and she tumbled to the gravel. She was saved only because she had not had time to gain any speed, so the fall did little more than scrape her up. She rolled and landed on her feet, dagger-claw ready. 

He screeched and swung at her but she was fast enough to dodge, lashing out with the dagger and slicing him across the chest.

They circled each other, slow and eager. 

“Working with Crowley?” he asked, lips pulling back in a sharp smile, “And you think that _I_ will be the death of you?” 

“Don’t have much of a choice,” she said, looking for an opening, “Not a lot of options.” 

“A lot of people have said that about working with Crowley,” he mocked. 

They both lunged at the same time. She plunged the dagger down but he caught her wrist, his claws slicing into her skin. She dropped it, catching it in her left hand and drove it down into his thigh. He dropped her wrist and scrambled back, falling and pulling himself away from her. She doubted the wound would be fatal but he’d taken her dagger with her. 

He stared at her from the grass, breathing hard, bleeding badly, a look of shock and pain distorted around his teeth.

She stared right back.

Then she turned, pulled her bike up, and sped away.

### 2029 A.D. - The Bunker, Earth

Dean and Cas remained in the library long after Sam had left. Cas pretended to be looking for information on the ritual. Dean did not even keep up the pretense, just sipping his glass of whiskey and staring into the middle distance. 

“So you’re telling me you die either way?” He said finally. 

Cas turned to look at him, “Either at Astor’s hands to open the Cage or to power the ritual. Yes.” 

“But Astor’s thing just said it needed grace, you’d just be a human right?”

“No, to have my grace taken like that would almost certainly kill me.” 

Dean got up and walked over to him, “This is bullshit. We’re gonna find something else.” 

Cas stepped closer and Dean did not move away, “It isn’t as though I wouldn’t welcome a third option,” he said, “To stay here would be… ideal.” 

“You just got here, Cas. But now I’m back to waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

“What other shoe?” 

Dean leaned closer, never closing the distance, like he was caught in Cas’ orbit, “You keep dying on me, buddy. I want you to stay.” 

Cas remained where he was, hovering so near him, their faces close. Dean watched him, waiting for him; Cas watched him too, waiting just the same. 

It was Dean who flinched. He stepped back and tried to smile casually, “Guess I’ll just have to be glad to have you while I got you, man.” 

He turned and walked toward the door, fleeing like he’d done a thousand times before. He stopped in the door frame, remaining there for too long, neither leaving nor staying.

“Dean?” Cas asked. 

Dean spun back around and looked at Cas, green eyes like fire. He strode back to him, face set like he was walking into battle. He pushed Cas by the shoulder, and Cas allowed himself to be backed up and shoved against the wall. Dean only paused for another second to look him in the eyes before he kissed him. 

Cas was unmoving for a moment too long and Dean wrenched himself back to flee. Cas seized his collar and flipped them around, slamming him into the wall and kissing him with decades of hunger. The lightbulbs above them shattered into a thousand sparks as Dean dug his hands into Cas’ hair, groaning like a wounded man.

### 2046 A.D. - Beresford, South Dakota, Earth

Bobby pulled her motorcycle to a stop next to Crowley who was scowling and nursing a split lip. Black smoke wisped out of a slash across his chest and his pant leg was torn, his leg scraped up from calf to thigh. 

“Where’s the boy? Didn’t you get him? Why’d you stop? We’re gonna be followed.” 

“The boy is in those trees,” he snapped, “He punched me when I was taking a turn and ran off when I fell.”

“You got your ass kicked by a seven year old?” 

His stormy expression made her laugh even if her wounds mader her feel like her body was peeling off her bones, “I’ll get him.” 

Crowley must have been in pain, because his eyes burned something fierce. 

She dismounted and walked to the trees, “Kiddo? Hey, we don’t have time for this. The Baby Rays are gonna come.” 

She could see his pale little face hiding in a bush. He inspected her and sniffled.

“My name is Bobby Winchester. I’m gonna look after you, but you gotta let me take you somewhere safe or those things that had you are just gonna come back. You don’t wanna go back there do you?” 

He shook his head and crept forward. He shivered violently, his whole body shaking. 

She looked at Crowley who had come up beside her, “Crowley, he’s freezing.” 

“So am I!” he complained. 

Bobby took off her jacket, even if it was torn and draped it over the boy’s shoulders when he emerged from the underbrush, “We have to move. There’s somewhere safe I can take us. It’s about six hours from here. There’s clothes and stuff for you there. The monsters won’t be able to get in.” 

He sniffled once more and rubbed his eyes, “They can’t?” 

“No, they can’t. I stayed there a long time and they tried their best. But we gotta go. They’re gonna be coming after us.” 

He reached out to her. Surprised, she lifted him up. “Why’d you punch Crowley?” 

“He’s scary,” he said.

“I guess so,” she said, shrugging at Crowley, “His tie’s pretty dumb.” 

“His face.” 

Bobby snorted, “Yeah, he ain’t exactly a looker,” she said. 

Crowley sneered, “He can see my true face, you little gremlin, probably for the same reason the Hellions wanted his blood.” 

She nodded, finally understanding, “Yeah, kid, he’s a demon, but he’s on our side.” 

“Promise?” he asked her, huddling into her warm arms. 

“Yeah, I promise,” she said, feeling a wild rush of emotion at having another living thing cuddled so close to her. 

She walked him back to the bikes, and glanced at Crowley who did not look pleased. 

“You get Thaddeus?” 

“Yes, he’s dead as a doornail. How did yours go?” 

“Three down. Castiel is wounded, not dead.”

“Castiel? Castiel is one of them?” 

“Yeah… he was the first.” 

His lip curled, “I shouldn't be surprised.” 

“Whatever, we need to move,” Bobby reiterated, defensive about Cas. “You got a name?” she asked the boy instead of talking further about it to Crowley, “You’ll have to stay awake and hold onto me.” 

“Ethan Taylor,” he murmured.

“How old are you, Ethan?” 

“Eight,” he said, “How long do we have to drive?”

“Six hours,” she said again, getting him situated, “Tug on my arm if you get too tired or need to pee.”

He nodded and clung to her. 

She clocked Crowley glaring at them but she ignored him, not interested in wasting time while they were out in the open with a kid. A real, living kid. 

They made it there together in the evening; a warm, safe feeling rushing over her as they eased their bikes into the garage’s hidden entrance. It was just in time too, Ethan was starting to nod off. 

She picked him up, wincing. He wasn’t heavy but her wounds from the fight throbbed. In her experience with these sorts of wounds, they never stopped throbbing. 

“Let’s get you washed up and in a real bed, huh?” she said, carrying Ethan down the long hallway. “Watch the doorway, Crow, there’s a -”

“-Devil’s trap, I know,” he retorted, stepping around it. “But wait, let the boy shiver for a minute. You’re bleeding soul all over the carpet.” 

“What are you gonna do about it?” 

“I patched you up last time, didn’t I? Where did you keep your arsenal? I need some spell supplies.” 

She put Ethan down on the sofa and almost collapsed. Now that she was here and death was not winging its way down on her, the full pain of her wounds came soaring back. She would rather have knives under her fingernails. 

She gritted her teeth, “Down the hall, locked cupboard, combination is 5283.” 

Crowley disappeared for an indeterminate amount of time. Ethan stayed next to her, but she had a hard time tracking how much time passed.

Finally, Crowley returned and sat across from her. She let him move her around as needed to smear a cold poultice on her wounds and wrap them in bandages. It required peeling off her tattered t-shirt but he didn’t make any of the comments she was expecting. 

The treatment didn’t alleviate the pain, but it felt nice, like cool water on a burn. She pulled on the ratty tshirt again until she could get a new one and took the medical supplies from Crowley, “Your turn.” 

He did the same, removing his tie and letting her treat and bind the wound on his chest. 

“Your soul bleeds black?” she asked.

“Demon,” he reminded her, “You ought to be more careful with yours.” 

“I’ll be alright,” she said, with no idea if that were true, “I’m gonna clean up the kid. There’s whiskey in the library if you want it.” 

“You lived here almost a decade alone and didn’t finish it?” 

“No,” she scoffed, “whiskey tastes like shit.” 

“Absolutely intolerable, you are,” he said, but left to get himself a drink. 

She picked up Ethan and took him to the bathrooms. 

The bathrooms had been meant to house a team of men in the fifties, but her dad had installed a tub when he decided to raise a kid here. She sat the boy down on it and ran warm water. 

She hadn’t realized how tiring it was to watch her back until she was here, safe again from the hungry monsters. She could collapse and sleep on the tiled floor. 

She helped Ethan undress and get into the bath, giving him soap to wash up with. She left him to it and went to her old room to get clothes suitable for him. He was a little smaller than she’d been when her dad had died, so she had pajamas that were meant for someone his size. 

He was almost asleep now that he was warm and cozy. She helped him dry off and wrapped up his abrasions from his escape attempt with disinfectant and bandages. The worst was the cuts on his forearm, where Castiel and Astor had been draining his blood for their spell. Right below that cut was a sigil burned into his skin. 

She helped him zip up the pajamas when he had them on, “Alright, Ethan, bed or food?” 

“Bed,” he said, his head lolling onto her shoulder. 

“Sure thing, sport, come on.” 

She brought him to her own room for now. It had been a few years since she’d been here but it was the most well maintained. She changed the sheets and tucked him in, checking on the sigils that were still painted on the walls. He was asleep the second his head hit the pillow. 

She watched him for a moment before she stood up. She clicked on her old nightlight and left the room. She didn’t want to talk to Crowley for a while. Seeing Cas - seeing Castiel had opened a gaping old wound. Jesus Christ she missed them. 

She knew Crowley would find somewhere to make himself comfortable. She stayed in the dormitory hallway, going down a few doors to her dads’ room. The door creaked on its hinges and she thought she ought to spray it down with WD-40. But not now. 

She closed it behind her and turned on the light. 

It was as she’d left it. A picture of her and her dad on the dresser. An old polaroid of her grandmother in a frame on her dad’s nightstand. Cas’ trench coat hanging on the hook. 

She lay on the bed and closed her eyes. What was the harm in giving herself a few minutes to pretend she wasn’t grown and here with a rescued boy and the demon ex-king of hell? When she was a kid and she’d have a nightmare, she’d crawl in here between her dad and Cas and they’d wrap their arms around her. 

God she was tired. What was the plan here? Best case scenario she’d get another shot at Castiel and gank his ass too, kill the rest of these fucking things and then what? She and Ethan would die as the last people on earth, Crowley would live on and what… where would their souls even go? Crowley the new king of two insolent dead humans? That was grim. 

She turned over, the force of her memories of this room making it easy to imagine she could still smell her dad’s aftershave even if he’d died way too long ago for that to be real. Still, the thought lulled her to sleep. 

She slept hard, harder than she had in years now that she was ensconced in the safety of the Bunker again. She was bleary and sore when she woke up. She pushed herself out of the bed and finally stripped out of her dirty and damaged clothes. She replaced them with clothes from the chest of drawers: A Led Zeppelin t-shirt, her dad’s flannel, jeans of Cas’ she had to cuff. She smiled at herself wearily in the mirror then headed out to face Crowley. 

He’d clearly had a night similar to hers. He’d finally abandoned his ragged outfit and replaced it with one the Men of Letters had tucked away. He was pulling at the collar of the shirt he obviously didn’t like. 

“You look like a mechanic,” he said as soon as he saw her.

“You look like an eighth grade English teacher.” 

He scowled, “Did you even go to eighth grade?” 

“... I’ve seen movies.” 

Crowley smirked, “I suppose you’d like it better if I said you look like a Hunter.” 

She grinned, “Sure.” 

“You killed three of them?” He asked.

“Yeah. Hannah went down easy though. Either she was someplace else or they didn’t have their food source long. She was scrawny like the others.” 

“How did the crossbow work?” 

“Awesome.” 

“Clever little Winchester,” he praised but didn’t let her look smug for too long before changing the subject, “Where is the boy?” 

“Ethan? Sleeping still probably. You know his name is really familiar. Oh shit! I know where I read it before, hold on.” She leapt up and bolted to the garage to rifle through the bag on her bike to retrieve her dad’s journal. She clutched it to herself and returned to Crowley in the library. 

She flipped open the leather cover and paged through it, she was sure she remembered right. 

“Yeah, yeah here it is. Look familiar?” she turned the journal around and showed Crowley an old photo of a dark haired man, “Ethan Snider.” 

“I know you didn’t get out much, darling, but Ethan isn’t a terribly uncommon name.” 

“...oh… alright well… hey though… his girlfriend was Taylor, Lila Taylor.” 

“...less common, what was the case?” 

She lifted her eyebrows, “Ethan Snider was Chronos. A god. A time-traveller.” 

“Was he now?” Crowley asked, moving next to her to read the journal over her shoulder, “And you believe our little Ethan to be what? His son?” 

“Maybe. Dad says Chronos lit up in red light then jumped through time. It was unpredictable and involuntary unless he killed somebody and stole their - well their lifeforce or something. Ok, ok so… so he’s with this Lila Taylor in 1944, meets up with dad, gets killed and all that. She’s left there in the forties right?” 

“Pregnant with a god,” Crowley adds. 

“Yeah, yeah, so Ethan gets the same curse as his dad, jumping unpredictably through time. But he goes too far forward, ends up here. His dad could probably figure out what to do, dodge the monsters until he skips outta here. But the kid gets found right away.”

Crowley chuckled grimly, “Rough fate.” 

“When do you think it started?” Bobby asked, compassion blossoming for the boy.

“Seven probably, curses tend to like that age.” 

“Why?” Bobby asked.

He shrugged, “How should I know?” 

She grinned, “Thought you were the big tough King of Hell, thought you’d know that stuff. Or did your mommy leave that out of the ABCs of magic?” 

“Shut up,” he shoved her shoulder and she laughed. 

“Alright,” Crowley said, smirking despite himself, “Why wouldn’t the boy just have disappeared? Eventually doesn’t he get taken to another time like his father?”

“He has a sigil burned into his arm, maybe it’s keeping him here. You can look at it when he’s up.” 

Crowley nodded to himself, “Being a god would explain why he can see my real face. And what Castiel was doing with his blood.” 

“Fill that part in for me.” 

“Spells need something to power them; I would assume good ol’ Cas knew a spell to use the boy’s blood and open doorways to different times. But spells always have rules, so I bet the Hellions couldn’t get through them,” he said, refusing to call them Baby Rays.

“Gotcha, so the Baby Rays were snagging people to eat from other times. And that’s what they wanted in the Bunker, they must think there’s a better spell.” 

They both looked at each other, not daring to breathe for a second. 

“D’you think there _is_ a better spell?” she asked finally, “A spell that would open a real doorway in time?” 

“If there was a spell anywhere, it would be here. We could… “ His eyes were bright. 

She finished the sentence for him, “If we found the spell… we could get out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Even more thanks than usual to chemcat92 for her work storyboarding and beta-ing this story. This chapter is much cleaner for her efforts. 
> 
> Let me know what you think!! Comments are lovely!


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